#gratitudeNow: A Dying Industry

Everyone and everything dies.

Cheery, huh? Actually, it is. Stick with me on this one, folks.

Endings and death have been on my mind a whole lot lately.

First off, two days from now will be the one year anniversary of Andrea’s passing.

Secondly, about two months ago, Squee and I broke up, after about four years together. It’s okay, really. I still love and care about her. But things change.

Third, my new job is demanding, and causing me in many ways to re-evaluate myself as a person, in all sorts of ways. I go to bed early, get up early to drive a long way to do a job I’m sort of teaching myself to do as I do it. It can be exhausting.

Last night I came home from work fully intending to work on my side business, do some podcast related work, and attend to a nagging bill related chore too. Instead I sat on the couch, lost at Overwatch for about 2 hours, and put myself to bed early, feeling low of spirit.

This morning though, I feel great. I had plans to get out the door by 6:15, an hour ago. But those plans died on the vine as I realized some other things I had to do. I made breakfast, packed my lunch, changed the cat litter, and realized I don’t have to push myself to do everything and anything all at once.

This is something Andrea knew and knew well. Don’t mistake me, she wasn’t some sanctified guru who floated an inch off the ground, and whom nothing ever bothered. So many of the phone calls and visits we had with one another started off with one of us engaging in a good old fashioned bitching session about something.

But the thing she knew, and which I also know but keep forgetting which is also, by the way perfectly human, is that everything and everyone dies. Every moment dies. Every plan dies. And when they do, they leave the ground where I’m standing fertile and ready to receive this very next moment.

Take this morning. As I made my breakfast, and checked my watch, I thought I might have enough time to change the cat litter this morning. When I went to check it, it was in a terrible state (Sorry kitties!) and I knew that I had to change it. So I did. If that means my commute will bloom up to 90 minutes today (which is very likely), well so be it. That’s okay. I will witness the death of the old plan and welcome the new one.

I know that because of my abandonment issues I have a tendency to want things to last. When I see that long arc of persistence grow around me, I lean into it and get comfort from it. It’s not an entirely bad thing either. It’s immature to divide the world into simple, absolute binaries. Yin contains Yang, and vice versa.

No matter how much energy I pour into anyone or anything in my life, it will eventually die. That’s tragic, yes. But it’s also comforting. Love and pleasure come to a fold, yes. But so does pain and suffering. That’s why it’s so import to just keep swimming, like Andrea always used to say.

The fact that the swim ends is what gives it beauty.

#gratitudeNow: Ring in those good habits

As I write this, i’m getting ready to go to the gym to go swimming. For Christmas this year Missy got me an Apple Watch. I’ve been using one of its applications, that tracks movement, standing, and exercise as rings.

Each day the rings start out empty and you fill them as you go. Workouts are an implicit thing, You tell the watch what you’re about to do and it tracks it with extra detail.

This really works for me. For one thing, the data gets shared with another application I use, Lose It. It makes it so easy to really see the benefit and interrelated nature of my choices. It’s also a sort of gamification of being healthy. I know that the swim I do a few days ago can allow me to eat an ice cream sandwich a few days later. Or conversely, see how I feel and how my weight fluctuates based on the amount of exercise I get. It makes me able to stand back a few feet from individual choices and see how they knit together.

All of which combined, help me be more fully present in both what I’m doing and why I’m doing it. I’m really excited to grab a quick shower, get dressed, & get to my gym. I like those closed green rings. I like what they do to and for me.

#gratitudeNow: Here I grow again….

So my contemplation today is about reinvention.

Growth is a process

I recently started a new job. It’s interesting how in my day to day interactions with new folks I keep bringing up prior experiences in my head and using them as the basis for new ones.

I got into a big meeting the other day about how to plan and execute work, how to deal with changes in technology, and share work smoothly.

I brought some good, strong opinions to the table. But was also open to listen. And in the process saw something that kind of blows me away.

It’s like I’m simultaneously the same person I was at my old job, and a whole brand new one. I’m reinventing myself.

Being mindfully present for it is mind boggling. I can feel myself… well, growing. It’s big things and little things. I made the decision to consistently be an early morning arrival. I decided to openly embrace learning some new technologies. And it’s just happening. I’m making it happen.

It feels so good.

#gratitudeNow: Moral Perspective

A magnifying glass around the world

So this past weekend I was visiting longtime friends. At one point,  the husband and I had a good hour or so to ourselves and we picked up chicken wings. 

 Car rides often come with philosophical talk, in my experience.   My friends shared with me something he says often, both at work and in his life.

“When in doubt, pan out.” 

  That is, step back from yourself,  from your immediate prospective.  Seek the wider viewpoint. 

 This is really smart stuff.   And for several reasons, and several ways:

•  There’s this thing I’m always saying how there’s only hear, only now.  Zooming out in that way helps me see so  zooming out in that way helps me see that.  Whatever amazing thing’s going on, it’s a nanosecond event in a very long life.  That’s also true if something terrible is happening.
•  It’s not all about me. I’m just one among many.  Often what works out well for me isn’t so hard for others around me.
•  Furthermore, we’re all in this together. So it’s often helpful to consider how something that affects me positively might affect others in a profoundly negative way.

 There’s more to this, lots more. I’m pretty sure this is going to be part of my meditation and contemplation for several days if not weeks or months in the future.   Just this morning, I saw this Boudin Doodle cartoon that touches on and aspect of this paradigm. 

The Buddha doodle monk and his elephant buddy, in spacesuits observing the earth. “Grateful for the gift of life” 

  The thing about perspective is that as a means of observations it’s controllable, blinking your eyes, are we going your ears maybe.   I know I can make the conscious effort to shift my perspective.   When I’m considering the moment I can choose the context buy which I am considering it  

Here’s a simple example.

 It’s Monday, October 29 as I write this, around 8:25 AM.   It’s simultaneously  early in the week,  not particularly early in the morning,  and rather late in the year. 

 None of these perspectives or wrong, they all matter.   By changing which one I musing, I can wrap my head around different truths about my life.

 For one thing, shortly I need to get on the road and get to my job because it’s waiting for me and I have things to do there.  

Simultaneously, the midterm elections are a scant number of days away, and it’s very important that I vote.  

At the exact same time, it’s valuable and worthwhile for me to take the 10 minutes or so to stop and write this post. I feel a profound sense of peace and strength from doing this sort of introspection, and sharing it with you.

 During the conversation with my friend, I was trying to explain this very difficult concept related to non-duality, that of satori. Satori is, sort of, the realization that you as a separate entity do not, have never, and will never exist.  We’re just the totality of existence expressing itself in this place, at this time, through this body.  As I told my friend, this isn’t terrifying, it’s actually quite soothing.  Through what he shared with me about panning out, I think I’m beginning to understand why somewhat. 

#gratitudeNow: Code Green

So, it’s about 4:30 this morning. I’m lying in bed, drowsing, about ready to get up.

The past several days I’ve been really hard at work on Project Drummond, my side software gig.

There’s this thing I have to do in the software, come up with cumulative durations for time spent working various tasks.

Let’s use the example of taking care of an adult baby. Let’s say from 10:00am to 10:45 you spend time reading them a story, then put them down for a nap, only to find out they’ve horribly misbehaved earlier that day, so when you wake them up at 1pm, you spend a good forty five minutes scolding and spanking them.

I want to add up that time doing both activities, and lots more.

I realized that in the groovy programming language I use, there is already some awesome functionality almost baked into the language to do this.

import groovy.time.*; 
dateStoryStarted = new Date().parse('hh:mm a', '10:15 am')
dateStoryEnded = new Date().parse('hh:mm a', '10:45 am')
 
TimeDuration durationStory = TimeCategory.minus(dateStoryEnded,dateStoryStarted)
 
datePunishmentStarted = new Date().parse('HH:mm a', '01:00 pm')
datePunishmentEnded = new Date().parse('HH:mm a', '01:45 pm')
 
TimeDuration durationPunishment = TimeCategory.minus(datePunishmentEnded, datePunishmentStarted)
 
TimeDuration CareTotal = durationStory + durationPunishment

All told, that’s 75 minutes of care, by the way.

So, I realize I can do this, while I’m laying in bed, and when the alarm goes off, I just pop right up out of bed, excited. Time duration and time category are the total boss.

I run some initial experiments with it, and it looks like it’s going to be just what I need.

Now I feel energized to go to work, rocket through my whole day, then come home and finish this thing in my own project.

Awesome. That my friends, is a code green moment.