City Beautiful

I am beginning to really appreciate time spent on the train.  I've been spending a lot of time in the city as of late and so a lot of time on the train as well.  Its an hour of time with 'nothing else to do, nowhere else to go'.  I could catch up on any one of the books I'm reading, or listen to my ipod- both of which I do occasionally- but the past few times, I've spent a large part of the trip just staring out the window, trying to let my thoughts come and go as they please.

For the most part it's been pleasant thoughts- excitement, contentment, and a general sense of well-being. I've been generally happy for a few months now, and so I'm perfectly happy to stare out the window as my thoughts come and go like waves rolling onto the shore.

The Legend of Billie Jean

A week ago I cut off nearly 2 feet of hair.  

I've been doing a lot of reevaluating my life lately, a benefit of having a roof over my head, a steady income, and the luxury of making changes in my life and more importantly, in myself.

There are a lot of changes to be made.

I want to love more, without reservation; without worrying that I might get hurt.  I want to have more compassion.  I want to live more- to adventure, to explore.  I want to experience new things and new people.  I want to be more patient.

I want to fear less, to worry less. I want to be less judgmental.  I want to give up on mistrust of others and doubt of myself.  I want to let go of my hang-ups and be more honest with my friends and lovers.

I want to live my life without the need for guilt or regret.  

This is what I want to change.

The best Defense is a good Offense

#480

1001 Things I want in a Lover

9 May 09

#480

Someone who is a part time lover and a full time friend.

Complaint Department

I complain too much.  I don't usually notice it.  I kind of gloss over it in my daily life as just something I do.  I bitch about the weather, or the people on the other end of the phone.  I bitch about the horrible drivers or my graphic design class. I just bitch in general.  

I don't think I bitch any more than the average person, and I don't put much weight in my complaints.   I complain as a matter of course- everyone does it.  It's how we relate to our coworkers- we often don't share the same successes, but can all commiserate about our frustrations;how we related to our families- oh no, crazy uncle Bill is at it again;  how we relate to our friends- my parents are on my back again about when I'm going to visit/get married/have kids/become straight.  

We as a society deal with our pain by bitching about it.  

But the bitching, even for that fleeting moment makes us focus on the pain, and rather than dealing with it- acknowledging it's existence, accepting it as a part of life- all of a sudden we create suffering around it.  It's aversion instead of compassion.  Like Noah said at Lila 'staying pissed off out whole lives doesn't work'.  

So I'm trying now to stop feeding into that compulsion to complain.  I'm trying to give up that idle bitching, that unhealthy fixation with things I usually can't control.  

Today was Day 1 of that journey.

It's not going well.

But I don't expect it to.

It's incredible once you're aware of it how much we do idly complain.  Being aware of it is the first step in my journey, and I appreciate (if sometimes less than others) the people who have made me aware of it.  I don't think that in the end I'll be any less of a pessimist.  I don't think not complaining will change my view of things, but maybe after a while more of the annoying stuff will roll off my back, and maybe it won't distract from the good stuff.

Spring

sitting quietly, doing nothing

spring comes

and the grass grows by itself.

-zen proverb

 Main Entry: 

mis·an·thrope 

Pronunciation:

\ˈmi-sən-ˌthrōp\

Function:

noun

Etymology:

Greek misanthrōpos hating humankind, from misein to hate + anthrōpos human being

Date:

1683

: a person who hates or distrusts humankind

I've been feeling like this quite a bit lately.  It's not directed towards anyone in particular.  In fact I feel like I've been connecting with my friends and coworkers more than before.  It's just this general feeling of not 'getting' people as a whole.

I don't get the person tailgating me on the parkway in the morning.  I don't get the impatient person in the supermarket or the person being rude to the cashier.  I certainly don't get the people in the newspaper- rape, burglary, assault, gay marriage bans, ponzi schemes, million dollar bonuses to CEO's of failing companies, mass murder,  and the obsession with Michelle Obama's wardrobe.  I don't get the nurses I talk to every day who make it clear they don't really want to be there, or the doctors who can't be bothered to acknowledge that they received results on a patient whose INR is elevated and they're going to bleed out.

I guess it's been a good exercise in equanimity.  I have to learn to let go when people do things I just don't understand.  It's not like I can stop them and get them to explain to me just why they did what the did or acted the way they acted.  I can't expect anyone else's behavior to conform to my standards of what it logical or make sense.  And more than that, I can't spend time worrying about it.  That confusion, and need to understand the method to someone else' madness has the same effect as anger- the ember you hold on to, getting burned in the process.  

This Body, This Breath

I've been practicing yoga on and off for over 7 years.  After softball and fencing, I've stuck with yoga longer than anything else in my life.  Like anything else I've had ups and downs, periods of time where I wasn't practicing, or when I was but something just wasn't right.

About 3 months ago I noticed a change.  It's not that I was all of a sudden stronger or more flexible (in fact as of late it's been quite the opposite).  But all of a sudden the pieces have come together.  

I'm finally, after all this time, feeling connected to my breath.  

It's finally clicked.  I've finally gotten to the point where I don't think about it (so much) anymore.  I can finally exhale and just let my muscles relax around my bones in down-dog.  I can finally feel the inhale pull me into up-dog.  I finally feel the rise and fall of my breath carry me through sun salutation.  I think it's finally given me a piece of the peace that yoga promises.

I'm not sure how this will change my relationship to yoga in the future.  I've wanted to teach for a while now, but I wanted to teach yoga without it having the hippie, new-agey, crystals and candles feel.  Yoga has always made me feel powerful and I want other people to experience that same strength.  I've never thought of yoga as anything more than an opportunity for a focused, dedicated workout.  To me, my meditation practice complimented my yoga practice, but they weren't different means to the same end.  I turned to yoga for balance, strength, flexibility, poise, and grace, but I was never really looking for peace.  

Maybe it's not really peace, but that purest of focuses.  That kind of single pointedness where everything has just come together. Maybe this is really what I've been striving for all along as an athlete.  

It's the click.

Everything I Never Wanted

The past few days I've had a chance to take a good look at my life. Things are good for the most part. I have a job, which means a steady income. I'm doing well in my graphic design class. I'm healthy(ish). I have a roof over my head and food in my belly.

But everything I have feels in some way or another everything I never wanted. I'm still sitting there saying to myself 'this isn't the way things were supposed to be', even if it doesn't have that same feeling of desperation that it did 3 months ago.

I have an office job, customer service actually. I have to dress in 'work clothes' every day. Dress pants, nice shirts, high heels. I sit in a mini-cubicle with a brand new phone and nameplate velcro-ed to the fabric covered partition that divides my desk from my boss'. I have an extension... x1125. I clock in and clock out. I grab hot water out of the coffee machine and make nearly undrinkable tea on my break. I work for a company with training manuals and headsets and sexual harassment videos.

By all accounts I should hate my job.

I don't hate it though.

That's not to say I love it and want to make a career out of it, but it doesn't suck.

I never thought I would be anything but miserable in a job like that. The thought of what is ostensibly a corporate 9-5 would have made me cringe while I was in college, but now it's just a necessary not-so-evil. I have moments when I get frustrated and castigate myself for going against some loose anti-establishment ideals I feel like I'm selling out on. Most of the time though I recognize it's just practicality. I took the opportunity that was offered to me, even if it isn't what I thought I wanted.

Does that mean I'm officially an adult? Making decisions based in what's practical rather than what I want in my 'ideal' world? Is there any turning back from that? Can we go from being practical, taking the job we don't love, paying our bills, putting money in the bank, and worrying about our credit score, back to "I'm going to save/beautify/inspire/explore the world"? Are the two mutually exclusive in the first place? Is there a way to find balance between practical and ideal; a way to keep your feet on the ground and your head in the clouds and to be happy with the whole situation? Now that I have my Office Space-esque job is it possible to still keep my feel-good movie dreams?

I guess the problem is that I'm so afraid of losing my dreams.  I'm not even really sure what I want out of life, but I'm worried that I'll end up settling for something less.  I don't want to wake up in 25 years wishing I had done ___.  I want to wake up in 25 years and think 'THAT was fun.  I can't wait until tomorrow".

Down the Rabbit Hole

Down the Rabbit Hole

Homework number 5.  We've moved on to Illustrator.  I've skipped a couple in here.  Just haven't gotten around to posting them yet.  This was supposed to be a simple still life with three objects.  I chose to continue feeding my slightly unhealthy Alice obsession and go the Wonderland route.  I'm still editing it a bit, but at this point there seems little reason to.  The entire class is a clusterfuck- a professor who doesn't teach but grades everything like it's an MFA thesis studio and students who can't seem to get their heads above water.  The few students who do know what they're doing, don't work as hard as they could, earning them the professor's ire.  It's just a giant mess.  I'm just glad to have the chance (and the impetus) to produce real work.