A Challenging Thought Experiment...bear with me, while I struggle through this...

Some minorities have the luxury of being able to commiserate publicly, while any attempt to unify by my ilk is met with raised eyebrows, news media coverage we never asked for and all the condemnation you might expect from a lynch mob or a firing squad.

Some minorities are met with bleeding hearts and open arms.

Some minorities write poetry, and are encouraged to find their voices, raise their spirits, and heaven forbid anyone threaten their freedom of speech.

But there are some thoughts you are not even allowed to whisper, except in vetted company.  Some jokes will even cost you your job.  Some ideas are so taboo you will be publicly vilified, mentally crucified, humiliated online, paraded and sullied and impossible to hire.

So there is deep-rooted anger, envy, rage, sadness, isolation for some minorities that cannot be assuaged or addressed or comforted...or even publicly allied...until recently...and even now it is unsafe to hold certain opinions or say certain things...

But now we have a very large, very public shield to hide behind.  And some of the members of this shield say and think things that are worse than what I think or say.  I can feel superior, since I would never mock a disabled person, while feeling a stealthy relief, and a quiet gathering hope that there are many more of us than I ever hoped or dreamed.  I see more than 60 million people voted with me, and I will never know if any of them agree with my specific brand of thoughts, or the taboo things our family taught me to keep away from "mixed" company.  (Pun intended.)

I can pretend in public, because the closet I am in protects me in such important ways, and the necessity of my closet has been bitterly woven in with our beliefs to fortify our anger and our hatred of whichever "others" have the public privilege, and government programs, and protections.

This secret can and must stay secret, unless we have established safety.  There are signals and code words, secret handshakes or phrases.  We are united online in new ways you cannot imagine, and now we have been validated.

We cannot seek refuge, so screw immigrants and refugees.  We cannot gather together in public, in protest, even peacefully, without being labeled a hate crime.  So we find each other, and we let off steam through private e-mails, private messages, secret groups, in person get-togethers.  We see hypocrisy all around us, and we are the unsung, unprotected, most misunderstood minority.

[I weep, because a part of me instantly celebrated when the West Virginian, Pamela Ramsey Taylor, and the Mayor, Beverly Whaling, both wound up losing their jobs or resigning after a tasteless racist joke exchange on Facebook.  In the aftermath, I tumbled through a series of mental gymnastics.  Ms Taylor and Ms Whaling were absolutely out of line, and now I begin my horrific gymnastics.  How would I feel if I had to resign after making a horrible joke about DT?  Did the punishment match the crime?  What sort of limitations are there on freedom of speech?  I disagree with their joke and banter, and I have every right to voice my concerns...but don't they also have the right to make their opinions known?  It is illegal to shout "Fire" in a crowded movie theater if there is not a fire, because it presents a public safety hazard, and would diminish the effectiveness of such an alarm in case of actual emergencies.  That is pretty straightforward.  I don't think anyone is protesting the limitations on freedom of speech in that case.  But if we want to rise above the times of internment camps, and McCarthy-ism, how can we create a safe space for the people to express themselves without fear of losing their jobs?  I want to make it Crystal Clear that I am not advocating for racism, sexism, xenophobia, anti-semitism, or anti-LGBTQ, or any other hateful speech.  This thought experiment is my attempt to imagine what it might feel like to hold certain beliefs - maybe because of a religious belief for example, and be blocked from safely saying those beliefs publicly.  I am still processing these thoughts and finding it very challenging.  There seems to be a swath of undefined territory between the "Fire" in a theater version of speech restriction, and the freedom we take for granted.  In that gray territory are statements that are considered politically incorrect, outright lies, and opinions that are highly charged.  I know people that are adamantly pro-choice, and people that are adamantly pro-life, and they can have a passionate debate, discussion, or choose to avoid the topic...but there is no shame in expressing either opinion.  One of the things that has happened during this opening of the floodgates is that it has come to light that there have been quite a few people who feel their opinion is unsafe to express, and this suppression has broken wide open, for better or for worse, and now we have to face it, learn from it, evolve.  (Best case scenario.)  I have learned more in the last 2 and a half weeks about pockets of privilege than I ever realized and it has been eye-opening, but this one...the one that I am trying to find empathy for above...has been the most challenging one to even consider.  Maybe it's because I am Jewish, and I find it extremely difficult to imagine anyone associated with neo-nazi/white nationalism as a fellow brother or sister in pain, hiding in plain sight, spending the last 60 years huddling in secret.  I do not want to call for empathy.  But my soul requires I consider it, because we must stop calling to squash entire races of "others" based on religion or skin color or sexual orientation or anything else.  And calling for Unity means considering this minority too...as painful as it might be.]

Kinds of Currency

There are many kinds of currency, and it reflected in our language in obvious ways sometimes, but not always.

First, the most obvious which is of course actual money. We spend it, invest it, save it, waste it, gamble it (win, lose), loan it, borrow it, earn it, crave it, and sometimes some people even steal it.

Next most obvious is time.  "Let's spend time together."  "That is such a waste of time."

And then:  "Pay attention!" "Attention deficit disorder"

So how much do we monitor our attention budget?  Do we need to have one?  And if so, how do we prioritize?

We can be out of time, out of energy, out of money...do we also run out of attention?  Are there things that sap our resources while we are unconscious?  Would we spend those resources differently if we were 'paying attention' to them?

A little over a year ago, I shifted my time/attention budget dramatically in the area of social media.  It was an important and healthy shift for me, reclaiming both my time and energy/attention.  It means that I no longer post on walls for birthday greetings.  (I used to log in each day partially to stay abreast of such goings on.) Now, if I send a greeting it is a private message, but in many cases I feel pretty sure people don't miss me.  In some cases I'll appreciate the reminder to call or text someone, but if someone misses me they can reach me and the wall post is such a tiny gesture, and some folks have even taken to shortening it to say hbd, so as the latest slang says: (which is probably obsolete by now) whatevs.
And then I took an extended break from social media of all kinds.  That was also good for me.

When I first started blogging, I had similar obsessive checking habits, and adrenaline responses when numbers changed on the statistics, or seeing which country was looking...okay, okay, I still get a big endorphin hit from all those things, just like when there are likes, shares, comments, etc...But knowing it's a drug has empowered me to keep it in perspective in some important ways.

Do I still spend time on social media?  Yup.  Is it an addiction?  Definitely.  Do the pros outweigh the cons?  For now, for me, yes.  I have my spending habits under control.

But on this topic, on a related note, are some of us addicted to attention?  Do we behave or misbehave in an attempt to get attention?  As a recovering people-pleaser, I can attest that praise is indeed another form of currency.  Some folks are on the other side of the same coin, craving attention in their case yields misconduct, which yields the 'reward' of punishment, yelling, time-out, or some other version of attention.  So is there a solution?  If you are a parent reading this, I'm afraid I don't have much useful advice.  Maybe notice trends, and then when your child expects a certain response go the other way?  I'm not sure.  Kids are so tuned in.  But also we 'pay' people compliments (a form of praise) which is further evidence of it being a kind of currency.

Now our language takes a funny turn when calling someone morally bankrupt.  We all sort of know what that means, and maybe we picture Harold from the Music Man selling snake oil to the good (gullible, desperate) people.  Or someone can be spiritually bankrupt as well.  Does that imply that morality or spirituality can be spent, saved, invested?  The way we invest time or energy into something?  Are those two things (morality/spirituality) even quantifiable?

When we've had an emotional day, we say we're spent, which I think refers primarily to energy levels, but does it go deeper?

And if these things are all a form of currency, how do we balance our checkbooks?  Is it most important to keep our attention greed in line, not have a deficit in our morality, or be owing on some mortgage in our neglected spiritual house?  How do we measure our overall dependence on these things, and how can we become accountable for our own balance?

a life-changing taco

Somewhere along the line, I swallowed some lies.  Lies like 'I'm in the way,' or 'I'm too loud,' or 'I don't matter,' or 'I shouldn't ask for anything, I don't deserve to be.'  Well originally I was going to write happy...I don't deserve to be happy.  But then when I got to the word be, that might have been the lie I swallowed.  'I don't deserve to be.'

Children soak up the world in gulps and gobbles, un-discerning, unyielding, impatient to grow and become adult, eager to be treated as an equal and a whole human being.  As a child we might mis-read or misinterpret the heart of a message, or maybe we get the underlying meaning more clearly than intended...who knows.  The thing is that when I was young I believed the world reflecting me back to myself through how others treated me was an accurate mirror.  Now that I've grown older I can see that there are many fun-house mirrors mixed in with good reflectors.  The fun-house mirrors at a carnival are only fun because you know them to be distorting.  But if we took them as a real and accurate reflection, they'd be truly terrifying.  In life it becomes important to treat distorting mirrors differently, giving them less credence, and maybe even a little compassion, since we do not know their story of how they became their warped selves.  Maybe I'll write a short story about human fun-house mirrors wandering around unable to figure out which ones are warped the least...what a wonderful children's book that would make...!

In any case, the life changing taco was an experience at dinner last night, and I must try to convey into words the magic of the moment before it slips away into the minutia of today's magical learning opportunities!

After a day of darting around town hunting for items at stores, comparison shopping, weighing options, and getting things done, we navigated through the sea of food options and I finally found myself in line looking at a menu of food options.  For more context on my level of vulnerability after all the option-weighing, you can read about it in one of Malcolm Gladwell's books or find Sheena Iyengar's TEDtalk.  Basically, not only was I hungry, but I was mentally exhausted from all the weighing and choosing.  And I was just relieved to be done making decisions.  (Or so I thought...)

I had no trouble deciding on the burrito, but as hungry as I was I wanted a taco as well, either a pork in adobo or a mushroom and onion taco.  The thing is, I am avoiding four-legged foods at the moment, so as delicious as the pork in adobo is at this place, I was ordering a chicken burrito.  And I was thinking a pork taco might be a nice compromise (being small), but then the mushrooms sounded really good, and since I was having them hold the yummy mozzarella from my burrito I thought maybe I could substitute mushrooms (or something at least) since I was not having the cheese.  On the register I saw that my total had jumped up by $3 once I said to add mushrooms to the burrito, and in that moment I let go of ordering a side taco in addition because I wasn't interested in paying more, but she hadn't said 'by the way there is an additional charge of $3 for adding mushrooms to your burrito,' she had just assumed I wanted them at any price.  Also there was someone in line behind me, and they were typing in to go orders from the phone in between taking my order and the person who had gone before me...and I felt myself shrink.  I didn't want to slow things down.  I didn't want to be a nuisance.  I didn't want to make a fuss.  I didn't want to gum up the works or ask more questions.  The cost of adding those mushrooms was more than a side taco would have cost, but I couldn't bring myself in that moment to change my order, change my mind, say 'hey, that's not okay with me, you didn't give me a warning or an option!'

Flustered, hangry, irritated with myself for not standing up for what I wanted, I huffed my way to a table to wait.  Swirling accusations in my mind, what's the fucking big deal, it's only three dollars, why do you care if the mushrooms are in a taco shell or on your burrito, why are you even so upset over something so insignificant, and on and on the litany in my mind, mocking, deriding, unforgiving, relentless.  And then tears welled.  For god's sake, am I really crying about a taco?  Or three dollars?  Get a grip!  The inner judge and jury were having a field day.

And I let the storm roll over me, through me. 

And after a little while, glassy-eyed, but clear, I rose out of my inner meltdown, walked myself back up to the counter, and bravely asked 'Is it too late to switch my order?  Can I get the mushroom taco instead of the mushrooms in my burrito?'  And whoever I spoke with needed to know my order number, which I knew, and she made it happen, and I walked myself back to the table feeling worthy.  Feeling brave.  Feeling I had gone to bat for myself.  Feeling my request was totally reasonable, and knowing that my asking was all that was necessary.

Giving people credit for wanting to please me too is something I'm still working on.  I have a long habit of people-pleasing, but it's sort of like learning to take a compliment rather than brush it aside.  Or like allowing someone else the joy that giving generously can bring, by receiving too now and then. 

It may have been the most delicious mushroom taco I have ever eaten.  I earned that taco, in more ways than one. 

I am so grateful to myself for weathering the storm of inner insults, and rising above, beyond, and taking care of my desires in the moment, allowing me to celebrate, and rejoice.  I have a track record of not asking for what I want, and later being sad and that old pattern is (slowly but surely) dissolving!!  That old pattern of swallowing my true desires in favor of not rocking the boat, not being a pain, not being the squeaky wheel.  The thing is, all my life I guess I've secretly been jealous of squeaky wheels.  And the external and internal rewards of not being squeaky aren't that great, to be honest. 

Maybe I've been robbing other people of the opportunity to please me, all these years, by keeping my needs and wants to a whisper.  Or on mute.  How can anyone even try to please me if I don't share my thoughts, my dreams, my heart? 

Next time, perhaps I won't even have to go back to change my order.  But that too will come.  

Emotional Non-Judgment

I am a fan of positivity, and finding the silver lining, and the teachable moment.

I am a fan of affirmations.

Am I alone, however, in finding the constant pressure to be positive, harness the law of attraction, and in general try to manipulate my emotional state oppressive?

Since when is being positive a cure-all?  Last I checked, when something shitty happens the response I have in that moment doesn't define me as a person (positive or negative)

I find a creeping counter-culture within my closest circle of true friends.  In hiding, we still preface negative statements of honest emotional state with "I'm going to hell for saying this..." or "I know I should not feel this way..." or "It sucks that I feel this way..."

And I want to share this counter-culture...and demolish the inner and outer judgment walls being paraded around as superior.

It is not a superior state of mind or heart to inflict or enforce a positive spin on every shitty thing.

Nor is it superior or inferior to wallow in a negativity spiral.

Neither is better or worse.

A lot of meditation and a lot of heightened self-awareness have brought me to a realization worth sharing.

Some positive thinking exercises are worthwhile, don't get me wrong.  But it is equally delicious to indulge in a fantasy of negativity, to follow the train of thought to all the worst possible conclusions.  Why else is the world so in love with the entertainment in books, film, tv, binge watching or imagining a fantastic series of explosive and terrible life choices unfold?

My teacher and guide on a spiritual path, Michael Barnett, has helped me recognise the possibility in the universe of transcending the judgment, and the duality of right and wrong, better and worse, and so on. Many gifts came through to me during meditations and time spent both in Germany and in seminars here in Santa Fe sharing space and resonating with his incredible cosmic connective energy.  (Perhaps I will write more about those as it feels right, for now a lot of it is still so raw and personal, and writing about it doesn't feel right for me just yet.)

I am a fan of Jeff Foster, who is also a speaker, spiritual teacher, someone I have not met, yet has taught me through his facebook posts, and youtube videos.  I found him through friends also connected with Michael, and Jeff invites us to embrace the full spectrum of emotion in our lives.

If we manage to keep some perspective in the midst of the emotional roller-coaster, positive or negative, then we can begin to evolve.

So yes, we can begin by being aware of the tendencies, habits, knee-jerk responses.  We can observe whether we trend toward doomsday scenarios, and whether those serve us well.  We can learn to dance in and out of moods, rather than be enslaved by them unconsciously.

And I will make a renewed effort to cease my judgment of my own emotions...and those close to me.

This whole topic might also be part of why I loved the movie Inside Out so much, because all of our emotions serve functions worth validating, and if we can embrace each other through the process, and accept the full complex cornucopia of our human existence, maybe we can grow beyond our known limits.

Are you with me?  Do you have a similar ambivalence toward all the Think Positive preaching surrounding us?

Just a little Uptalk (?), with a side of Vocal Fryyyyy

In the midst of a social media crackdown on the most vapid sounding language trends, the last thing I ever thought I would do is defend their worth.  Nor do I wish to fall into the trap of defending women for what are admittedly irritating habits in speech.  But here I am.  And it isn’t only because men aren’t receiving the same language shaming these last few weeks, though that is in fact a big bone of contention.  It is also because these language trends enrich our social vocabulary in important ways!  Read on for the top 3 reasons I will continue to use mitigating language, uptalk and vocal fry when I speak.  (Though perhaps not all in one sentence.)

For three weeks, I have been reading articles about women, and directed only at women, about how our speech habits are holding us back in the professional world, and in some cases these articles were even written by successful women.  First I came across this article advising against using the word “just” too much.  Initially I supported the idea, because women in the business world probably do self-efface and apologize too much for everything, including their own success in an effort to come across as less threatening.  Here is another blog article supporting the idea that we as a gender overuse the word just.  And who better to give advice to women about how to be successful than a successful business woman, in fact a former google executive!?  But then I decided that removing the word ‘just’ altogether would probably be disastrous for society.  And then I got angry that no one counts words that men might overuse, and writes shaming articles to call men out on how they are standing in the way of their own success because of their gender-specific linguistic choices.  But I will (deep breaths) come back to the gender discussion, because there are many nuances to the topic.

The first topic at hand is the word ‘just,’ which is a form of mitigating language.  Mitigating language is designed to soften a blow, or make delivering bad news a little less harsh.  Also it is associated with a polite way to address a superior in many cases.  Notice that I am staying gender neutral.  Mitigating language can be extremely helpful in relating touchy, volatile or potentially offensive information.  Here are some popular catch phrases that I would consider mitigating language and some of their functions.

1.      Just in case, just so you know, just checking

a.       Implies deference, and also respect for the other person’s ability/capacity/intelligence

2.      Like, you know (alone or in combination)

a.       Serves primarily as a buffer before saying something that might be hard to hear.

b.      Gives the listener time to process or prepare for the shoe to drop.

3.      On the off chance

a.       Signals to the listener that the speaker already thought it unlikely, which can be self-preserving or help the listener save face depending on context.

Does it sometimes sound apologetic?  Probably.  Is it always appropriate?  No!  Mitigating language is, however, a form of social lubricant, without which we might too often find ourselves in confrontational situations.  This is useful for any person who has a boss.  So if we tell women to remove this word, thus is born a fun catch-22 – sound confident by eliminate mitigating language and see that promotion sooner, but at the risk of being chastised for sounding “bossy.”  This leaves us (women?) forever on the pendulum of over-correcting, never finding that porridge speech equivalent in the middle that’s juhhhst right.

I have my own reasons for thinking “just” is a four-letter-word, and for that matter so is “easy.”  When someone is in a teaching, parenting, or managing position those two words should be used maybe never because all they do is cause the learner to feel slow and stupid.  An evolved learner might recognize these words as crutches their teacher uses when he or she is frustrated and out of ideas how to rephrase the lesson, but most learners are feeling too vulnerable to be in touch with anything other than their own failure in that moment, so it falls to the teacher to be aware of their own use of language and its implications.

Then someone posted an article about uptalk, also known as valley-girl speak, upspeak, or rising terminal.  I might be a fan of the movie “Clueless,” but I don’t actually have conversations that sound like that.  So ‘Sure,’ I thought ‘get rid of it!’  And then I started hearing it among family members, and noticed my best friend using it, and oh the horror, I even heard myself doing it!  So I did some deep reflecting and found that there are some really worthwhile reasons to use uptalk.  In fact, a well placed bit of uptalk could save your relationship with a spouse or co-worker (or at least prevent a misunderstanding).

1.      Uptalk is a way of creating a conversational comma:

a.       Subtext “Don’t interrupt me, I’m not finished expressing my thought.”

                                                                          i.      Listener should not interject their own fully-formed thoughts, because what comes next could change their mind, or add vital information to the discussion at hand.

2.      Uptalk can be used by a speaker to be sure the audience is still engaged instead of daydreaming:

a.       Subtext “Are you with me?”

b.      Subtext “Do you understand?”

                                                                          i.      Listener on phone should usually respond “uhuh, uhmmm”, in person silent nodding or eye-contact might be enough.

3.      Uptalk can inject enthusiasm into an otherwise boring story:

a.       Lilting tones of voice keep your listener from wandering off mentally, since we have the attention span of a fruit fly and it seems to be getting shorter and shorter!  (Congratulations, by the way, on reading this far.  You must not yet be converted to the Twitter-esque character consumption limitations descending tragically on future generations.)

b.      No one ever complained (in my hearing) of an Australian or New Zealand accent, which is sing-song and riddled with delicious and sexy uptalk…

In conclusion, there are parts of the world where uptalk is a consistent part of the vocal sing-song and conversational vocabulary of expression and intonation, and the desire to label it as a sign of being vapid or even specific to a (female) gender is enraging me.  I know that boys and men use uptalk as well! 

The third article I came upon back in July, and perhaps the hardest vocal trend for me to defend is vocal fry, or vocal creak.  The article implored young women to give up the vocal fry.  It can happen with your first speaking of the day, pre-coffee, without any meaning behind it at all.  It can happen accidentally if you run out of breath at the end of a sentence.  As Jessica Grose commented in her recent NPR interview, it can happen as a result of over-correcting for uptalk.  (Another shining example of the porridge being too hot, or too cold.)  It can also happen because you’re tired.  But I’ve observed it can also have meaning in certain context:

1.      Vocal fry can convey exhaustion

a.       Seeks sympathy nods, signals a need for support on a rough day

2.      Can also convey boredom

a.       Signal to change the topic, or be more engaging

3.      Or can convey ennui, or world-weariness

a.       Feeling hopeless or helpless, seeks comforting, or a desire to be asked “What’s wrong?”

This glottal vibration doesn’t have to mean anything, and if we spend our time modulating our breath, intonation and word choice, we the speaker and we the listener can be completely thrown off and distracted.  I know I was when I did my YouTube hunt for examples of men using vocal fry and uptalk.  

And that would be the real shame.  The real shame would be if your listeners are so caught up in looking for uptalk, vocal fry, or counting the occurrence of the word “just” in your presentation that they are deaf to the content of your presentation.  There is a brain phenomenon called inattentional blindness which is a kind of temporary blindness.  This is illustrated brilliantly in this Smithsonian Magazine article, but of course you will all be brilliant instead of being tricked because I’ve prepared you in advance, so congratulations! 

In a fit of outrage on behalf of my gender in the last few weeks, I found myself trolling YouTube in search of footage of well-respected men giving speeches or being interviewed to illustrate that men use these same vocal trends as well, but are not scrutinized for the way their voice peaks (Mr. George Bush, Mr. William F. Buckley) or creaks (Mr. Clinton).  During this searching, I experienced the auditory version of inattentional blindness (perhaps it should be named inattentional deafness?) and realized that I had heard but not understood a single word.  In my effort to notice language styles, intonations or count words I could not have told you what they were trying to explain or express.  I long for an age when people can drop the filters relating to who is delivering the message and how, in favor of a respectful dialogue or dare I even dream – a discourse.

I do agree that it is annoying when voice and speech trends like this catch on like wildfire and lose their original purpose, hence my reluctance to champion them.  But I also caution against the total elimination of them.  Anything done to excess becomes irritating (even political correctness) but let’s not throw the baby out with the bathwater just yet.  I for one am not ready to retire all signs of uptalk, mitigating language or even the occasional creak from my vocabulary.  While stripping the world of all of these language habits might make some folks really happy, I think removing them entirely would potentially diminish or hamper our nuanced communication.

I wrote most of this on August 2nd, 2015.  Then I wanted to tweak and edit, and my blog went dormant until today...There was yet another fantastic KQED radio show critiquing women for tentative speech, and I knew I had to put down my red pen and publish this post in all its imperfection.  I thoroughly enjoyed the Amy Schumer bit on women apologizing as well. 

I know I am not alone, and here is an article from December 2014 written by Marybeth Seitz-Brown stating many similar points, and stating them well and clearly, and strongly.  

Let's all put down our auditory red pens and start listening for content!

big bird

Sometimes at work I feel like a giant wandering post-it note, squawking and flapping my wings and fussing to remind everyone...did you remember to________(fill in the blank)...for a million different things as if I am big bird but instead of feathers I am covered in millions of post it notes.

My mere presence is sometimes enough to ruffle feathers and call to action, but more often it's my eyes burning like laser beams into the back of someone's head and they feel it, or my actual words, or a text or phone call or e-mail...

and it's everyone!

students, my boss, my colleagues and people I'm training...and of course myself.

once in a while I drop one and everyone can giggle because I'm human too, but boy it's a flurry and it's constant.

there are things bound to fly off and drop or get forgotten, whether I make lists or not...because I'm human too.

And I sure am tired of being the walking post it note for everyone else.  Slowly but surely they will all learn to rely on someone else, or each other, and it will all be funny and fine, and then it will be someone else dropping post-it notes...someone else to pick up the pieces when someone is upset...a new big bird will be born.

I'm really amused by the image.  I can giggle about it right now, instead of getting my feathers ruffled.  I can't take myself so seriously when I'm big bird.

rambling (short)

We are chugging along, in the home stretch of a long and busy time frame at work, and then next week is blessedly short.

I'm looking forward to a mini-trip to the Bay Area to see family, but there are a lot of things still happening between now and then.

tomorrow's event plus Saturday's festivities (aka fun, aka stressful, aka hyperdrive)

then Sunday is the 17 year anniversary of meeting my father...actually Saturday probably is, but it was father's day weekend anyway, so that's pretty cool slash emotional

and of course sad because my brother's father passed quite suddenly about two and a half years ago and other people I know have lost their dad so there's that.

and then Monday. Monday would have been Grandma's 99th birthday.

and Monday I am supposed to have a Very Important meeting as well.

So it is good that it is going to be a short week next week.

I am processing a lot of things.

glad to have this outlet, whether I have readers or not. Though I kinda want to give a shout out to whoever is reading this in France and Russia, because I don't think I know anyone out there. US and Germany, yes. So thanks for coming back to read more. It's kinda neat to see that someone in Lithuania and Thailand (etc) stumbled across my page by accident even once but it is infinitely cooler that someone in France and Russia came back to read more of my blog. Thank you!

And of course an even bigger thanks to my friends that kinda know me who keep popping in to see my latest ramblings...it really does mean the world to me.

Productivity

Today started out lazy, relaxed, and then became productive! I threw out three non functioning non-donate-worthy pairs of shoes, and bought new ones, and did laundry.

AND I am continuing the sorting process, books to donate...books that are cherished fiction, and a section for psychology, a section for business and management growth, a section for trashy page turners to be read once and then given on or donated. I have an impressive collection of books...some of which I haven't read yet...

And many dvd's as well.

I must say, overall there are more dvd's that I have watched more than once in my collection, than dvd's I never opened. This is a good thing.

The last category is clothing, and I do have a preposterous amount of that. That will wait for a string of days of productivity, not just one

:P

I watched two episodes of Hoarders online last night, and while mine is a milder case, it was certainly a bit of a motivator for today.

I will try to be firm but gentle, but it might take multiple passes and some tough love before I really let go of some of this stuff.

must examine what it means to have it, why it is important, if it is important actually...and so much of it has been out of my consciousness for so long and I haven't missed it, so why hold on?

baby steps.

:)

creativity

Sometimes, the oddest things will spark a river of thoughts gushing faster than I could ever type.

I thoroughly enjoyed dinner and a show this evening with my cousin and her husband, and the whole drive home I was prattling along in my head...where does it come from? this crazy river of thoughts...

In any case, my head is still ringing with some of our conversation and the writing and the execution of the play, and the stand up comedians after the show.

And I'm thinking about what kind of material I would include if I ever did stand up, just like before.

Maybe I would talk about the types of hand shakes, and the types of huggers in the world. Would I take a risk and call on a volunteer, or would I hilariously mime it all with the mic stand awkwardly? Would I have the courage to talk about sexuality, or would I turn six shades of red, stammer and rush off the stage? Would I need notes, or could I wing it, or will they have those google glasses by then so I can fake winging it?

And how did my mother have the courage to just up and sell her belongings for two tickets to India? How, and maybe did I over-correct for all that in my caution now, or am I being wise and prudent, or just a chicken-shit lazy

wow, and you wonder what goes on in my head?

I have warring factions in there...and stalemate, stagnation, inaction, passivity, judgment, endurance, fear, yearning, and a desire to make waves and a desire to not rock the boat.

it's never dull.

sometime, I'll do a stand up comedy open mic night or amateur night just to get it out of my system. maybe i'll tank, or get some laughs. but it will happen someday. I'm too damn curious how it would feel, whether I would fail, and so on

so that will now be added to a bucket list I didn't know I was making.

number 1. perform a ten minute stand up comedy bit in front of a live audience of at least thirty people, preferably at least half of them would be strangers. :)

number 2 will be that hang gliding thing that had to be post-poned due to weather.

number 3 is that I will be a published writer. unsure if that will begin as an autobiographical work or fiction, but it will happen.

Hoarding

I might have some mild hoarding tendencies. When I think of getting rid of stuff, my mind often fights it with 'what if I need it someday' or ' what if I lose the weight' or 'what if I forget that memory without that thing trigger' and the like. Keeping stuff is a sign of scarcity mentality, and also a sign of lack of trust. We moved around so many times when I was a kid and things I cared about got lost in the shuffle, so hanging on now is probably a symptom of that.

Bottom line though, is I have too much junk. What the heck do I need 8 trophies for, which are just collecting dust on top of my book shelf?

I am mentally preparing for some things to become unnecessary. Maybe I can downsize the stuff. Wish me luck!

Detachment--Healthy or Escapist? and some thoughts on why positive thinking might not be the answer...

There is a whole culture of positivity, choosing our reactions, responses, etc. I am in a love/hate relationship with it for many reasons.

On paper, it sounds great. I'm a fan of finding the silver lining, looking on the bright side, learning lessons, and on and on. And I agree with so many of the ideas, because we can use positive thinking to comfort ourselves, soothe ourselves, recover from trauma, avoid making things worse or inviting more drama and these are all pretty good results. One negative result I have also experienced is self-judgment or criticism from peers or friends. The lecture (whether from others who mean well or my own self) is the worst wagging finger, self-righteous, annoying and unsympathetic response to an emotional flare with negative connotations. Sometimes, it would be nice to be able to release emotion rather than stifle or swallow or minimize...and it would be even better if it was allowed to flow out without being judged immediately, or accused of indulging negativity.

Parsing this is a work in progress. I see virtue in not wallowing in misery or inviting more misery through self-fulfilling self-sabotaging negative thought patterns. I get that we attract what we focus on, and we need to build habits of gratitude and kindness and be solution oriented.

rah fucking rah.

But when bad shit happens, looking on the bright side is just another drug to numb the pain, and being pathological about being positive seems like an insane response in the  face of tragedy or adversity. Nor is it okay to me to just dismiss all emotional responseif it is out of our control. "When we can't control circumstances, we can still control our reaction to them, it's a choice how we respond." I say bullshit. The only way you have control of your response is a sociopathic detachment either from your own emotions or your fellow humans or both. We have an emotional response. Period. Then we can accept it or judge it or try to councel our way to a new and potentially less painful understanding. But we cannot control our response. All we can hope to do is learn to not give in to a knee jerk response by filtering what we say. And we do that to protect ourselves and our fellow humans, which is mostly still in service to protecting our ego and self-image.

I'm on board. Really and truly. But don't let's pretend that the goal is detachment or a pollyanna perpetual fake smile plastered on our faces when shit hits the fan. Neither of those is healthy, in my opinion, nor sustainable.

I studied stoicism in college, and as a highly empathic person the idea of detaching sounded like heaven to me, and I tried it for a while, unsuccessfully. There must be a balance between falling victim to the storm of human emotion like a boat without a rudder/paddle/sail or being trapped in a fortress of solitude.

Someday I will find a good balance, but I'm not willing to pretend that only focusing on my response to things and force-feeding myself affirmations all day long is enough of a solution. I might go one step further and say I'm not sure the response is what needs managing/fixing/yadayada. Maybe it's the judgment of self and others. As I said, I'm still parsing and wrestling my thoughts on this whole topic.

Technology

I think we call them smart "phones" just to keep it within a mental grasp. This gadget can do so many things, and it happens to also function as a phone. But if I think about it too long, my brain hurts. I'm afraid that we are living in the future already, and it is difficult to even imagine what else we could invent.It was so futuristic in TV shows and movies to have a face to face phone call, and now almost anyone can do that not only on their computer but also on their phones. I remember a trip to Tomorrowland in Disney about 12 years ago, where they had a coffee table that you could load with family photos or a book and touch on the edges and pull apart to expand or pinch to shrink and now that's something I have in the palm of my hand.

I go back and forth with feeling awed excited and impressed on one hand, and on the other hand I'm flipped out, worried, nervous. And then it's all too much to feel so I numb my mind with fun distractions like another youtube video, someone's blog, kindle,Netflix, or a TV app on my This Is So Much More Than A "Phone" device.

I have mixed emotions, but on some level I am horrified that there's a whole generation born in the 2000's who will never know a time when Text, Friend, Google, youtube, etc were not Verbs, and some of them were not even words before. There might be a few pockets of parents (if I were one, I'd be one) who limit computer time, social media, etc. Who want to teach their kids the importance of using their own imagination, and to not fear boredom. Boredom is the birthplace of unique ideas. Boredom is when your inner demons surface and you can invent ways to slay the dragon.

of course I also see the irony of using a social media platform to rant about this, because I am insta-hypocrite. Maybe if I point it out first no one will write a stinging remark about it.Though I also have very few hecklers lurking so that's a plus. :)

I'm sure I could say more on the subject, but for now I must go.

Ttfn, dear reader.

Exes

I remember some of my exes with fondness, and some with varying degrees of regret. In all honesty, I feel lucky to have been in most of those relationships for at least the growth and self-discovery and so on.

But I will share this fun fact.

I still cyber-stalk two of my exes. (occasionally)

The two that cheated on me.

I'm sure it's unhealthy by someone's standards. My reasons for doing it have shifted, but I still peak at their facebooks now and then.

When I do, it doesn't feel twisted like it did in the beginning. When I did originally, it was myspace...yeah, remember that? And it used to torture my soul to see him change his background and profess his love so publicly for her, especially when he had never done those things for me. It was a delicious and indulgent sort of self-torture to compulsively check his page when we first ended. I got such a twisted sense of elation and schadenfreude when she broke his heart and he changed his background and his status...and even more evil joy when I heard he got evicted...and fired...so much of my need for revenge was assuaged by this internet surveillance.

It has calmed and slowed and I go many months on end without even thinking of him, or him...but it was so weird that when my other relationship ended also many years ago by now I took up the habit again, but this time checked on both of them. And now, every so often, I get bitten by a curious need to look...to see...I don't know...maybe are they married, or did they move out of the state, or did they post something personal or who knows why...what I hope to see or find.

perhaps this compulsion will one day disappear altogether. and I use the term compulsion for the mere fact that once it occurs to me to look, I can find no compelling argument not to satisfy the urge, so I look. maybe I will try to control the urge next time it pops up just to see if it's difficult. as I said, it only happens maybe once a year anymore. I'm not worried about it. I'm not sure I care enough to make myself not do it.

I guess in a way I'm almost always curious about all my exes...in most cases I truly wish them well...

just a rambling overshare tonight, I'm afraid. No point to make, no confession or absolution...

Do you wonder about exes? Do you cyber-stalk any of them? Or am I the only honest weirdo...?

Tripping on May-be

Whatever the mind conjures up may be. At the same time maybe lives in the in between, in the purgatory of not yet, may not, may be. It is a luxury in a way, may be. It is indulging a fantasy, may be. It is also the very seed-like beginning of many a what was. For that reason one should do one's best never to poo-poo a maybe. Do not underestimate the beauty and majesty of may be. Many decades did mankind perhaps daydream about flight, and then may be has now become common place! People thought about space for centuries, and maybe became history and fueled many more flights of fancy.

May be is sometimes also a fence-sitter, and non-committal. Sometimes may be is a procrastinator and a scaredy-cat. May be is not content, but might cling to 'the devil you know' rather than taking a risk. May be is a dreamer, a purist, and of course the dream is pristine and pure and perfect while reality is messy and uncertain.

May be - I will indulge you a while longer, but soon we must explore some messy options, and allow new may bes to surface.

Imagination Runs Wild

The music is loud enough to make talking with words impossible, which suits her just fine for her purposes tonight. Talking is overrated, and words are often lies. But the body never lies. She feels the bass beat vibrating up through the floor, the air, her spine tingles and her feet itch to move in time to the insistent rhythms. Her friend passes the drink to her again, and she tastes the tang of alcohol mixed with something fruity and feels her inhibitions slip a little further away.  There might be a hundred guys or there might be only two, but tonight she is going to be a different self, a self that doesn't stop the presses, a self that throws caution to the wind, a self that enjoys the moment for its own sake. Her body has begun to wave in tiny undulating ripples that express the melody while also acknowledging the driving beat. She takes another long sip from the straw before handing it back to her friend, so she can dance with her arms too. She scans the crowd and feels several pairs of eyes appreciating her movement with unabashed lust. She feels their eyes undressing her, and all it does is encourage her movement.

The dj blends a new beat in so the song moves seamlessly and her dance is uninterrupted. Her eyes move lazily to him, and the dj smiles at her and she beams back at him. She knows her dance gives him validation and appreciation. His eyes shift to the rest of the crowd, and then she feels someone in her space just behind her. Slowly she turns and locks eyes with him, daring him to show her his moves. He is devouring her with his eyes, and she starts to sync with his movement.

It doesn't matter where he is from, where he is staying, whether she'll ever see him again. She doesn't care if he's married, has kids, or is a nice guy or a jerk.

She mingles with him, tastes his lips and the beer and cigarette he's enjoyed before joining her on the dance floor. Her tongue dances with his tongue, and their bodies press together in time with the music, and in her mind the dj is making love with them too in this moment. The sweat is dripping down her spine, his shirt is also wet and she grabs him by the front of his shirt and pulls back from their kiss for a moment, locks eyes with him again and drags him to a dark corner...

Shifting Meanings

Many many years ago, being thin and tan were signs of poverty while being pale and fat were signs of opulence and wealth. Being tanned meant you had to work outdoors, and thin meant you had to struggle to put food on your table or sometimes go without any.

Now, a tan means you have leisure time to go on vacation, or lay out or pay someone for a spray tan. And being pale means you are stuck indoors behind a screen in a cubicle. And being fat more often than not means you are poor, because unhealthy choices are more affordable than healthy choices 9 out of 10 times, and besides food choices being screwed, the nation has turned fitness and weightloss into a billion dollar industry, so if you are thin and tanned you might also have a personal trainer. Or maybe I've lived too close to LA for too long, and am not seeing that the overweight ones are also wealthy, who knows.

In any case society is all screwed up because whatever the trend is today will be different tomorrow (if today and tomorrow are a few decades apart)...

So the moral of the story is just try to define happiness for yourself and forget fitting in.

Cocaine, No Need to Try It

My life is pretty colorful, but some of my experiences and memories surprise even me. There was this one crazy weekend in DC sometime in my college years. I have forgotten most of the names, so I'll be making those up if I use any at all. I hope I don't accidentally make up a name of a real person that was involved. In any case, the adventure started with someone asking to borrow eighty bucks. (I might be inventing the amount as well, and my brain also won't allow me to recall whether they ever paid me back or not. Somehow it is irrelevant, and I knew the risk was there when I offered.)

I understood that the money would be used to buy cocaine. I volunteered to 'loan' the money, though I told them I would not be partaking. We took a trip to the ATM. There were maybe four or five people involved. They scored and as we were walking to the party she started in on me.

"I've never done it before either! We could be first timers together! Come on, you have to do at least one line with us, we wouldn't even have it without your help."

I just held firm, shook my head. I obviously was not judging, not planning to turn anyone in or rat anyone out since I was enabling and complicit. Why she was so invested in me trying it, I'll never know. I'll also never know what it feels like, though they were doing lines right in front of me, like a movie come to life in 3D. One of the guys had rubbed a bit of it on his gums, and decided to kiss me. It was a short kiss, and it tasted bitter and had no appeal. His interest was never in me anyway only in himself. He was going to be a model or a rock star or a movie star or more likely a hot mess on self-destruct...anyone around him was charmed for a while. He was handsome, but chaotic.

She went ahead with the group and I am not sure if she enjoyed it. Maybe she was mad that I held strong in the face of peer pressure. Peer pressure has had influence on me at times, so I guess my resolve was strong in this wild weekend.

I think I should give a shout out to my tenth grade Health teacher, Mrs. Puncus-Merola (probably misspelled). She educated us about many things, but drugs was on the topic list and that class taught me that some people's hearts stop on their first try of cocaine. Not to mention it is highly addictive. Duh. I will write about addiction another time, but for now suffice it to say I knew my limitations in that department were real. Also I didn't want to risk immediate death.

My arguments were not powerful enough to convince her not to try it, though if I'm being honest I was never trying to talk her out of it. I was only justifying my own reasons for not indulging. And if I'm being honest, I didn't need to justify and I was never even considering it. My decision was instant and final, not up for discussion.

There are lessons in life that must be learned the hard way, through personal experience. And there are lessons that can be learned vicariously. Apparently this one was the latter for me.

Aphasia

Her eyes lit up, and his heart sank. Her mouth opened, and sounds came out, her face animated in the telling of her story and he did what he could. When she smiled, he smiled, when she got to a particularly funny part of her story and touched his arm he made eye contact with her and then threw his head back and joined her in a belly laugh. On the inside a part of him was tearing apart at the seams, but he didn't want to burden her with his sense of tragedy. He knew she didn't realise that she wasn't speaking English. She wasn't forming words. He couldn't lip read her incoherence.

The doctors had told him that her car accident had damaged the speech center of her brain. Inside, her mind was intact. But her verbal expression was permanently impaired. In moments like this, when she seemed so happy telling her memory, he felt the worst. The big question had haunted him now for two years. Should he tell her? Should he let her know every time she opened her mouth that no words flowed forth? Should he insist on her typing or writing her messages? Or should he allow her another day of ignorant bliss? Two years equalled well over seven hundred days of ignorant bliss, and though his heart still wrestled with the moral ambiguity, his mind knew that telling her was a selfish act. Telling her would be requesting sympathy for himself from her, and it would be a cruel act as well since there was no hope for rehabilitation.

He held her eyes with his own, a light shining in his as he forced his tears into submission in favor of shining love her way. His love for her had not diminished in these two years. If anything, he felt like they had settled into a natural rhythm even more easily than their first three years of marriage. Things were simpler now that she was so clearly dependent on him. But he felt his need for her as well. It was a symbiotic relationship, if a little one sided.

She wiped a laughter-induced tear from the corner of her eye as she came to the end of telling her story. He often found himself wondering which of her many adventures she was reliving. He wished he could connect more mentally to her. In those selfish moments, he had to steel his resolve.


(This was inspired by an old married couple I met when visiting my Grandmother about  five years ago. It was the most heart-wrenching thing, as she moved her lips and touched his arm a twinkle of intelligence clear in her eye. He leaned over to me and explained that aphasia only impacts the ability to speak, not the ability to think which struck me at the time as tragic. It was unclear whether she knew of her condition or limitation, which was the next layer of tragic to me. The question of whether to depress the lady with this news, because I for one would want to know. My research is minimal, and for the sake of my story I made the case hopeless for recovery though it seems like it varies in degrees of severity and so on.)

 

Good "Following" as Compared to Good "Leading"

This is not about dancing, believe it or not. Obviously I may draw on the analogy of dance for this topic, but I want to discuss a less obvious point of view.

How many books are out there on Leadership? Being Number One, How to be Successful, Business Management, Bosses.

Well I'm in what they call middle management at work. And I have an ax to grind, and this is my soap box, so I'm going to rant here. By the way this rant has been brewing for probably eight to ten years.

It is easy to sit back and criticize a leader. The leader is in the spotlight and also near or at the top of the pyramid. All the leaders can say they learned what to do and what not to do from bosses they had to work for or report to when they were not yet the boss. Kind of like parenting, for some. In any case I'd like to shine the spotlight the other direction for a few paragraphs. (This is not aimed specifically at anyone I currently supervise, btw)

What kind of follower are you? Are you easy to manage, or a challenge? Do you respond well to coaching? Are you prickly or insensitive or do you always play devil's advocate or do you misbehave or push buttons or rattle cages? Would *you* want to manage you?

It's so cozy to sit in the group section and bitch about the boss's short-comings, and let's be honest every boss has them (being human and all). But when was the last time you asked yourself how you would feel in their shoes? Or maybe you are quite capable of doing their job, or doing it better than they do...but does that mean you can't try to see why they might be acting the way they do? How many times in life do we think and judge and say to ourselves "I would never do x,y,z" only to find out more information later which allows us to better understand and justify doing the exact same thing? Too many times, certainly in my case. I used to be pretty judgey, but now I see whys and wherefores and I do my best to suspend judgement and try to avoid the moaning and complaining because it serves no purpose.

Also, when you think someone else needs to lighten up or loosen up, you might want to ask yourself whether your behavior engenders trust. What's the track record? Are you showing up late and leaving early? Are you nodding off in meetings, or forgetting tasks assigned to you? Because guess what? A supervisor/manager person can lighten up when deadlines are being met and your antics aren't getting him or her chewed out by their boss.

If you think someone could be more organised, maybe you can offer to help or ask intelligent (non-accusatory) questions that help steer things in the right direction without insulting the person.

Whatever you can critique is probably something that leader is already aware is an issue/struggle/challenge, so they may be sensitive about it. Are you a supportive person cheering them on to grow and meet their potential, or are you tripping them up on their path?

Be the kind of team member they need, be the kind of follower that observes without judgment, be the kind of person you would want to manage. Be part of the solution, not another fire to be put out or another 'problem' or issue to resolve.

They say praise is supposed to flow down, and complaints flow up, which is nice in theory. But guess what? Praise is appreciated by everyone, and complaints are not to be confused with training/coaching and coaching in my world can go both directions as well. I have learned a great deal from my boss, but even more from my co-workers and students.

screw the pyramid. just be nice to each other, and don't treat someone as if their title defines who they are as a person. and let's all try to make each other's jobs easier.