#365Gratitude Day 355:Tag, you're it

Here's a first.  I don't think I've ever put a piece of code I've written into my blog.  This little gem below is for a side-project of mine.  It's a Grails custom tag.  You call it on a GSP, a groovy server page, similar to the way you call an HTML tag.

  def formattedPhone = {attrs, body ->
    def rawNumber = attrs.phoneNumber
    out << "("+rawNumber.take(3)+") "+rawNumber.drop(3).take(3)+"-"+rawNumber.drop(6)
}

That looks kind of like this:

<g:formattedPhone phoneNumber="${user.mobileNumber}"/>

(On an amusing side note, when you make a string with a ${} set in it on a GSP, the code inside the handlebars is treated like an expression, and evaluated prior to the page load.  That's not the funny part.  The funny part is that those are called gStrings.  Aren't programmers a riot?)

Why is this my gratitude today?  Several reasons.  

First, I've been working with Grails for several years now, and since I'm working on a side project of my own, I get to build it the way I want, not the way that's been dictated to me.  I've known about custom tags for a while, but never had the chance to really use them before.

Second, I taught myself how to do this.  I had a vague idea of how tags worked in general, and why they were a good idea.  So I hopped on the net, did a little googling, and after reading a few interesting tidbits, banged out a bunch of tags.

A friend of mine taught me the word for this sort of behavioral ability before - it's called auto didacticism.  It's being a student, and one's own teacher too.  I'm glad to have it.  It serves me well.

#365Gratitude Day 342:Good for me? Good for you!

I keep bumping into examples today where advice I give other people is also good for me, and vice versa.  

First, this morning, on Unnamed Social Media Site, a friend of mine lamented about how she struggles to do everything she has to do in life, and can't seem to find time to even rest. 

I told her she was being way too hard on herself , and suggested that if she makes her own well-being a priority, maybe she would feel less overwhelmed. 

Cue irony in 3, 2, 1...  

I was telling my girlfriend Squee all about this, as I was driving to work this morning.  This was after the very good, very long day I had yesterday, when I got up around 4:30 in the morning, spent several hours coding at my side project, went to work, fought rain and traffic in a torturous commute, wolfed down way too much dinner, then proceeded to work until late on the side project again, then tossed and turned all night, still thinking of said side project.  This resulted in me: having trouble getting up, missing out on work on the project, missing out on going to the gym. 

By trying to do everything, I wound up not able to do much anything, beyond the minimums my day required of me today. 

But, giving my friend advice to be gentle to herself, combined with Squee's careful eye upon me, helps me see that what's good for others is also vital for me, too.  I need sleep.  I need to eat right.  I need to work out, and take care of myself, physically.  Bouncing back and forth between awesome supercapable day and terrible burnout day is no way to live. 

So, it's getting on towards the end of my work day, when I get an email from a podcast listener, as follows: 

Subject: Mindfulness

Hey!

I am working on practicing mindfulness as a way of decreasing anxiety. What's the phrase that you say on many of the podcast episodes? Something like "Where am I? What am I doing?"

Thanks,

**redacted listener**

So, here's what I told them.

Hiya!

You're talking about The Two Most Important Questions in the Universe™. They are:
"Where are you?"
And
"What time is it?"

The answers being that:
You are here.
It is now.

Which are actually the only time and place you can be, although we frequently lie to ourselves and pretend otherwise.

Thanks!
--mako

That's some damn good advice.   It's funny how as I give it to someone else, I'm kind of re-giving it to myself, all over again.  Sometimes I lament, for comic effect, what a pain in the ass the universe is, my ever-present, always-giving, provider-of-lessons.  And while sometimes the way these things jump out at me really is annoying, mostly it's a blessing that I'm grateful for every single time it happens.

So, I'm going to go home now, and take back roads, drive slowly, and listen to an audiobook I am enjoying.  Then I'm going to relax, and go to bed on-time for a healthy bed time.

#365Gratitude Day 341: A Kiloword on Kink

You know that old saying about how a picture's worth a thousand words?  Yesterday a friend of mine showed me an amazing cartoon that proves that out.

This one.

There's so much going on here, so many hard-to-convey ideas in play. 

First, when you're a trapezoid (or an age player, or a kink person, or anyone on the margins of social acceptance) it's so tempting to want squares, triangles, and circles (regular people) to approve of you.  And it's not entirely a misplaced idea either. After all, you're still a shape (a person).

But there be dragons there, so maybe you just work from within, do self-acceptance, that sort of thing.  It feels really good when you embrace your inherent trapezoidal nature, hang out with other trapezoids, buy the latest trapezoid accessories too

It's awesome to say, put trapezoid art up in your house, go to the trapezoid munch.
But that's also, not the whole story.

Take a closer look at the cartoon.  It's super telling that in that whole cartoon the trapezoid gets one line and two facial expressions.

The whole narrative comes from everyone else.  So the trapezoid runs away.

This thing speaks to fears I've held, ways I've been treated. worst-case-scenarios that I've held onto that have kept me from new experiences and joy.  

It's the reason why it feels so good to get diapers in the mail, and put them away in a drawer by the bedside, like they're no big deal and just a part of my life.  It's why I bend over backwards to teach people to love themselves.  It's why I'm adamant about being a polite member of society, but not requiring the tacit approval of its majority.

It's not that I think that the square, the circle, and the triangle here are inherently intolerant assholes (although they're certainly acting that way), it's that they and the trapezoid have bought into a paradigm where you're only worthy of love and belonging if the majority says so.

And that's utter nonsense.  

I'm really grateful for this comic because it shows the problem so very clearly.

We've got an out though, maybe even an adaptive strategy around it.  We can recognize that unity and difference aren't opposites, they're complements.  One exists to help define the other.  It's not that the trapezoid isn't a shape.  It clearly is.  The square, the circle, and the triangle have demonstrated that they're just not willing to see it, which forces the trapezoid to seek validation elsewhere.

#365Gratitude Day 338:No longer a loan

I've had my awesome, wonderful car, Appa, for five years now.  Appa's a 2010 Toyota Prius.  I first got him back when I was in a terrible car accident, that totaled my last car.  I had wanted a Prius for a long while.  My friend Frankie has one, and uses it to drive all over, these crazy long distance drives, hundreds, if not thousands of miles, one way.  

So, when misfortune struck, I used it to my advantage.  I got a really good insurance payout from the accident, and used it to buy my Appa, used.

Today was a big milestone in my life with Appa.  I own him.  I had a five year note, and thought I was done paying it last month.

As it turned out, I was off by nine dollars and ninety-seven cents, which I went and paid today, in cash.

Beyond the fun of putting a $20 down on the counter and telling the teller I wanted to buy a car, the whole thing is kind of a big deal to me.  I bought the car as a kind of polyamorous investment.  I wanted a car I could drive long distances, on the cheap, to see the people I love.  

And that's an investment that's worked out.  I have regularly driven Appa from Virginia to North Carolina, to western Maryland, and to New York, and Florida even.  He's an amazing car.

Part of why I wanted the car is because I know they last for a long time if you take good care of them.  I'm at this crossroads in my life, where I'm starting a new business, one that might make me do a heck of a lot of local travel as the business grows.

I'm looking forward to outright owning Appa for a very long time.  Every other car I've bought in the past twenty years, I wound up trading in to get something else.  Appa's been different.  I have taken very careful care of him for as long as I've had him, knowing that I intended to hang on to him for a long time.  I made a mature, sensible plan, and stuck with it.  

And now that plan's at its fulfillment.  In the best way possible, I feel like a total grown-up.

#365Gratitude Day 336:Let me slip into something more discomfortable

So, as a morning person, I do a lot of thinking in the morning.  And this morning I got myself into a good old tailspin of some negative thinking.

The particular what's, why's, and wherefores of said thinking don't really even matter. And, they're private.  But a really good thing just happened to me around said bout of badthink.

A good friend approached me offering to lend support, and I sort of judo flipped the offer. I didn't want to discuss the churn in my head.  But I did value their support, and said so. 

Here's exactly how that went down.

My Friend: "Good Morning Mako"
Me: "Morning!"
My Friend: "How are you?"
Me: "So-so.  Just have a lot on my mind."
My Friend: "Do you want to talk about it?"
Me: "No, but thanks.  Hugs."
My Friend: "Hugs."

Funny thing.  As soon as we had had the exchange, I started to feel better.  Then it struck me why, exactly.  It's not a simple why.

Over the course of my many years of meditation and contemplation, I've stumbled across several ideas, several practices, which I find transformative, helpful, and healthy in my life.  

One is being mindful, staying present.  That means being in the moment, even if the moment doesn't feel very good.  You feel in totality what you're feeling.  Then, you feel the next thing.  I had been all caught amidst a bunch of expectations, frustrations, fears, and judgments.  But when my friend messaged me, I was beginning to feel something different: supported, loved, cared for.  I started to feel better in part because I was moving on to the next thing.

Another has to do with some instruction I learned from Pema Chödrön.  It's a meditative practice called leaning into pain.  You take the thing you're looking at, that bothers you, and really focus on it.  If it's a fear about the future, you follow it down the rabbit hole to its potential ultimate conclusion.  If it's a lament about circumstance, or past pain, you look it full in the face, and see what that circumstance really means.  

It's a rewarding but challenging sort of thing to lean into one's pain.  What tends to happen is that whatever-it-is that's so painful to you gets its teeth blunted.  It's not that there's no bite there, but that the pain stops being front-and-center and all consuming, and recedes into a more manageable place.  A mistake you have made becomes just one among thousands you have already, and may yet make.  

Being mistreated by another person gains context.  It's not that you forgive them, or that it doesn't hurt.  But you see that they, just like you, are fragile and imperfect.  

The thing causing you pain still causes it.  But you begin to see that the pain is transient, fleeting, like every single thing in your life, including your entire life.

Third, and this was maybe the key thing, I saw that I was okay with not being okay.  I wasn't running from my discomfort.  I was staying, sitting with it, moving through it.  That's samsara, the "wheel of suffering", from Buddhism.  Often we expend more energy trying not to suffer than the cost of just experiencing the suffering in the first place.  I didn't want to rehash my negative thinking with my friend because it had already happened, and I didn't need to run from it, just through it. 

That actually felt good to see.  Now, about an hour later, I can barely remember the thoughts which were so hot and painful just a little while ago.

I do this sort of processing, moving through things, all the time.  But it's rare that I take the time to mindfully detach from it, and watch it.  I've spent 12 years acquiring and honing these skills, and each time I use them, it's still work, still a practice.  I'm going to be doing this same sort of meditation and contemplation for the rest of my life.  That's inherent to the very nature of the practice - it's not work you start, or stop.  It's work you do.

I'm thankful for it.