Change is inevitable

Posted on August 12, 2009 by nat

All day, every day last week I was meditating. It was glorious. Every time I go there, meditation camp, substantial change in my life happens when I get back. Thankfully I saw it coming this time. I try to remain equanimous with anything that happens, admittedly it’s easier when I know what’s going to happen. Point being, I returned from seeking enlightenment to find myself unemployed. They, the company, were quite civil about the whole thing. It is a staff reduction (layoff) rather than a firing. I’ll be able to get unemployment. They’re giving me two weeks severance. I get to work through the rest of the week. All rather nice.

Despite all that I was upset about this last night. I went out for a late night ride. There is nothing like cruising along the lake front at night, the city lights reflecting off the surface, chill night air on the face, absolutely perfect. I was recalling meditation camp. What have I learned? The heart of the teaching is that everything changes. We have no control over that. If you accept that everything is going to change whether you want it to or not life is easier. Also, it’s our, I think insane, belief that we have any say in the matter that starts a lot of trouble. When something we want to happen doesn’t or something we don’t want to happen does we get upset. The more sane route is to understand that this too shall change. That was the basic teaching of vipassana.

Over the course of the ten days many songs went through my head. One line in particular ran through my mind, “Be strong, serve God only, know that if you do beautiful Heaven awaits.” That alone sums up more wisdom than I’ve been able to gain in my 30 years of life. I’m not a Christian. In fact I don’t even believe in God in a personified form. That is to say, there isn’t a being in the sky watching us. I find I still lack the proper words to describe my own experience of God. It has happened, it certainly wasn’t in any church though. It’s the sort of wink and smile of the universe I get when I’m walking home in the rain because that I ignored that voice in the back of my head that said “Grab your umbrella before I left.” I digress.

What I take “serve God only, know that if you do beautiful Heaven awaits” to mean is, by leading an ethical life you will find the kingdom of Heaven within. In my own experience, as long as I’ve done the right thing by my own standards I’ve never had a doubt about it. It simply doesn’t phase me if people disagree. Where I get into trouble is when I start rationalizing or finding justifications for my actions. Where I get into trouble is when I start trying to find reasons why other people are responsible for my life and where I’m at. I think this is true for all people. How miserable to think that you have no control of your life. To think that you might have to someone else’s permission to do the right thing. This is where “Be strong,” comes into play.

It can be really hard to do the right thing. It can be equally difficult to find the strength to look inward and untie the knots of self-deception to navigate a tricky situation with compassion. The people I love and respect the most do this. There are a million different ways to get it done but they all do it. The value of introspection in conjunction with personal responsibility/accountability is so valuable that I often go blind to people who can’t see it (something I need to work on). Then it starts again, back to the meditation pillow, find equanimity, this too shall pass, this person is where they are in their life, by judging them I only bring misery to myself, and on and on and on.

In the end I came got home from my ride singing the song posted below. This line reminded me that I’m in good hands “Be strong, serve God only, know that if you do beautiful Heaven awaits.” The funny thing is, if I did become homeless, aside from the loss of material goods, my life wouldn’t change that much. I’d still meditate two hours a day, spend a bunch of time at the library, and play my melodica.

There has been an outpouring of love from friends and family. It’s been a pleasant experience, so many people and so much love. It really makes a guy feel good to know so many people care.

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Reinventing yourself

Posted on July 12, 2009 by nat

I was supposed to go hiking today. I didn’t. My friends and I made our way out to the site but miles before we got there we were discussing the weather. It was raining, foggy, and generally a recipe for a bad time on the trail. In lieu of suffering through that we went to the movies and then to lunch. Generally a good time. These particular friends are a married couple. The husband is a friend of mine from high school and has seen me in all manner of ridiculous states. As such when we hang out eventually my brain drifts to the past. Where we’ve been and where we’re going.

After our late lunch they dropped me off at home. I immediately started thinking about how to get my exercise for the day and decided to walk to a Barnes & Noble some five miles away. My boss was kind enough to get me a $50 gift certificate for my one year anniversary at the job (Thanks Nancy!). It was a wonderful, long, leisurely walk.

I got there wondered around for a long time trying to figure out what to get. I ended up with two albums and one book. Both albums are cover albums. One is a tribute to a now departed artist (Elliot Smith) and the other covers/remixes of a still active band (Stars) who is well connected within their music scene. It’s interesting to hear what creative choices people make with other people’s work. Songs like many things have an essence of their own.

I was thinking about the creative process and personal change on my way home when I came across a wonderful concert at the Eritrean restaurant around the corner from my house. The woman standing out front invited me in. Suddenly there I was, listening to east African music, dancing, and having a good time.  Loving where I live!

At one point my racist suburban fear would’ve kept me from even coming into the neighborhood I live in, let alone live here. A lot of friendly faces, long conversations, and introspection have helped to deprogram the malignant ignorance that pervaded much of my view for so long. I consider that progress.

Often I hear people speak from ignorance. It’s painful. Even more so when it’s willful. The unwillingness to learn is something so confounding to me that I can only guess at it’s roots. Here is one of those guesses. Maintaining comfort is top priority for people who have it. It’s easier to do the wrong thing comfortably than right thing painfuly. Changing a point a view can be pretty painful.

One of the most profound shifts in my life this was when I fiirst began questioning my faith. I was young and quite suddenly found myself in the awkward position of knowing all these people who were going to hell for being sinners. I couldn’t make sense of it. I spent a few years writing people off. Clearly they were going to hell and there was no point to knowing them. But then it was my friends. That was a little harder to justify. Eventually I broke down. I couldn’t reconcile my beliefs with the reality I was living. A great many people who were good and honest people didn’t go to church. Not only that they didn’t seem to believe in much (spiritually at least). I found accord once my beliefs were reconciled with reality, by discarding those that I couldn’t justify. When I took my experience as valid data suddenly things changed. My experience was enough to guide me. I didn’t need to rely on someone elses interpretation. That isn’t to say I didn’t seek guidance but a good teacher sets you on the path, you make the journey. Thus, I was able to keep my friends and go into the world a little less judgemental.

For me this is the importance of participating in society, of talking to people who aren’t like you. This is how I find out my soft spots, where I’m ignorant. When I feel myself getting really indignant I know I’ve hit a gold mine.

But what of it? Much like the songs I’m listening to now the themes my life maybe the same but the tune is different. Go out for walk, do something that scares you, most importantly admit that everything you think my be wrong.

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What then?

Posted on July 10, 2009 by nat

I take as a given that climate change (whatever it’s cause) is going to have substantive impact on how and where we (humans) will live. Also, we are going to run out of oil and necessarily run off of alternative energy sources. If you have any doubt about this look at where a lot of investment banks are putting there money. One of the many results will most likely be our food will necessarily be local. The days of having resources to ship apples from New Zealand

What I haven’t seen a lot of is writing about where to live. As the weather continues to change, more extreme at both ends, the growing season is shorter. Also, places that used to be very comfortable won’t be anymore. I’ve spent very little time in Phoenix but it was miserable. It was the middle of summer and hot. Now imagine being in Phoenix without air conditioning. Seattle seems to still be a pretty nice place but the rainy season is known to have a negative impact on people’s mental health.

Here is an incomplete list of criteria for what I think will make a good place to live in light of the up coming changes:

  1. Good weather over time given current climate change data
  2. Long growing season
  3. Vibrant agricultural community (this could be as simple as a neighborhood full of gardeners)
  4. Sustainable access to freshwater
  5. Preferably a low incident rate of natural dissaters

This is what I’m looking for.

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When you see an open door

Posted on June 5, 2009 by nat

This post is a depature from my normal writing (eg more diary format than more formalized thinking). Consider yourself warned.

Last night was great! Had a productive but unstressed day at work, they (my employer) took me to a fancy lunch, then we had happy hour at work, then when out for actual happy hour, made my way to the bar where a dear friend works and met up with another buddy. And that is not all! After I got done there I started walking home. I was walking past a music venue and it sounded like a good band was playing. I stood around the back entrance just listening. In short order I realized that the door was open. I waited. Some folks came out and quickly went back in. The music was great. I’m sure I’ve snuck into a show before at some point but I can’t remember when. I got there just in time for the last four songs of the night. This is who was playing:

Feeling like I’d had a pretty good day I continued on my way home. I again found myself at the back of the club. This time talking and hanging out with band. Awesome! Now I was definitely on my way home. I didn’t get too far. I was walking by an old, beat up house with a woman drinking wine out of a bottle on a porch under a red light. So of course I walked right up and introduced myself. She is from Germany and very nice. Offered me some of her wine and asked if I was from couchsurfing.com. I said yes, which is techinically true. I’m a member of the site I’m just not very active in the community. We talked a little more and then I made my way in to see this band:

The video doesn’t do justice to how great last night show was. I haven’t had so much fun in a long time. Dancing, laughing, and generally being rawkous. I ended up picking up their EP.

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Day 32: The experiment is over

Posted on June 1, 2009 by nat

I have finished the month of May successfully. As my last few post indicated I didn’t meet my goal of not purchasing anything extraneous. There are a variety of factors that led to this but most importantly I think is convenience. As The Dead Kennedy’s said “Give me convenience or give me death.” Culturally I don’t think there is much thought put into how much convenience shapes our internal and external lives. 

The Industrial Revolution marched us straight into the suburbs and industrialized food distribution. Regardless of environmental and dietary impact aside, this is quite amazing. Compare my grandfather’s parents were stuck on a boat for weeks crossing the Atlantic to me wake up and eating banana’s from Ecuador that were brought up the coast in two days. 

I digress, I’m not here to discuss the magic of supply chain management. No, question is: what are the effects of concentrated wealth? The birth of convenience in the ability to concentrate wealth (read: resources) in a particular place. The most visible effects are a degraded environment, fat people, and, although their is less physical evidence, an erosion of common ethics. I’ll leave the first two to your own observation dear reader. 

As I mentioned in an earlier post, children aren’t starving by design or conspiracy. The culprit is the ability to ignore the problems that face us. It is a difficult decision to intentionally encounter things that make us uncomfortable. Even more so when that encounter shows us that we aren’t who we think we are.

Jung wrote quite extensively about this notion of our Shadow. The Shadow is the part of ourself that contains things we aren’t comfortable looking at, this isn’t necessarily only “bad” things. How funny that it is precisely the things that make us uncomfortable that we must overcome if we are to get anywhere in life. 

Mythologist have long known that the tales of knights and dragons are wonderful parables of self-discovery. Our hero travels to defeat an immortal creature that hordes treasure. Or more to the point our hero goes to defeat something that has existed for everyone, everywhere for all of time, to gain the insights of doing such a thing. 

Did I slay my dragon in my May? Probably not, but that battle has left me a little wiser for my next encounter.

Till next time kids,

N

I have met the enemy and he is us ~ Walt Kelly

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Sometimes things make me sad

Posted on June 1, 2009 by nat

Saw this movie at the Seattle International Film Festival. It was great, the director was there. Very well shot, narrated, etc. If you  get a chance to see it you should.

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Day 21: The failure continues

Posted on May 21, 2009 by nat

It turns out that not participating in the the economy is really hard. Not buying CDs and other consumer goods isn’t so hard. I’ve got a Vespa now. I can while away my time by driving aimlessly. It’s the restaurants and bars that have been hard. While I have been able to keep my eating out to a minimum it’s still happened. On my way to or from work or anywhere else and there is barely enough time to drive there let alone stop and prepare food and I’m famished…. *sigh*

Regardless this has been a good exercise. Every time I’ve bought something that pesky little voice in the back of my head has said “Hey! Aren’t you not buying stuff this month?” Then I quickly run through the rationalizations and continue with the transaction. Being able to observe the low level cognitive dissonance1 alone is worth the mild discomfort.

Not surprisingly it gets me thinking. Sure I can rationalize spending my own money despite my little experiment but how is it that culturally we rationalize starving children? I’m not talking about foreign countries, I’m talking abject poverty in the good ol’ U.S. of A. It’s a pointless question. We don’t rationalize starving children we ignore them. For those of us who can’t we donate time, money, prayers, or whatever we feel is appropriate. In the worse case scenario we just feel bad and then continue doing nothing.

I spent a long time last night talking with a friend of mine who had done work with the U.N. We went back and forth on the how’s and why’s of trying to make the world a better place. Does it matter if you lie to people to get them to do the “right” thing? Should the FCC set an ethical standard for advertising? Is marketing inherently deceptive? As the conversation turned to the big issues it became clear to me that even people who breath rarefied air don’t have the answers. That part of me that gets me out of the office and into the meditation hall knows that. I just wish it was easier to integrate that sort of understanding in to daily living.

It is useful for me to remember that even really, really, smart people are just people. I think there is a myth amongst the general populace that “Oh, those people at <insert Ivy league school /> will find answer to <insert problem here />.” Or more frightening, “What problem?” All of this and still I find myself believing that people really are doing the best they know how to. It leaves me wondering, is humanity naturally inclined to destroying itself?

Now, despite my rant, I’m now going to go back to work, forget that their are serious problems that could use my attention, and get another cup of tea. Maybe I’ll have the courage of my convictions tomorrow.

1. There are three steps for resolving dissonance if one doesn’t work we move on to the next. The steps are to eliminate the cause, rationalize the behavior, or add the cause into our current belief structure and modify our behavior accordingly. The wikipedia entry for cognitive dissonance is alright. This woman although boring was also rather informative

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Day 1: Failure, but at least my face is shaven

Posted on May 1, 2009 by nat

Here it is, a beautiful Seattle spring day. I’m super excited about my scooter (picking it up on Tuesday!). In preparation I’m taking the Motorcycle Safety Foundation course so I can be a safer and more educated rider. Last night was the first night of class and it wasn’t particularly challenging. There was no riding, it was all classroom time. One little kink that came out of the class though was that I don’t have appropriate shoes, boots really. They stressed that we would not be allowed to ride if we didn’t have sturdy boots that covered our ankles. Additionally they made it clear that converse would not be allowed. 

And so it has come to pass that on my first day of not buying stuff I went out and got a pair of riding boots. I’m not sure if this falls under the previously committed funds category or not. Regardless I’m not worried about it. I didn’t start this little experiment to see if I could play lawyer with myself. “Well Nat, you know you said….” Meaning, I don’t need to deliberate about things that I need to do because I started this brief chapter in my life. I started it to get a clear sense of how reliant I am on consumerism to fill my time. 

Additionally I hadn’t shaved all week. I, for better or worse, come from a family of people who don’t have a lot of body hair. Hence I can’t really grow facial hair to save my life. Here are the results of more than a week’s worth of growth:

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It begins!

Posted on April 27, 2009 by nat

After reviewing my finances and also the state of the world economy I’ve decided that I won’t be spending any unnecessary funds in the month of May. That is to say, unless I’ve previously committed my funds (rent, credit card bills, etc.) I won’t be spending any money except on groceries which will be used to make food in my own kitchen.

I’ll be documenting my progress here at least two times a week. The real purpose behind all of this is to force myself to spend more time at home with the insane amount of goods that I’ve already purchased and don’t use regularly. Also, if I’m going to be able to play “Lean On Me” flawlessly by my birthday I really need to up the number of hours I practice every week.

Until that time all shopping will be continued as normal.

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Step one

Posted on April 1, 2009 by nat

I bought this today:

Now I just have to acquire a scooter….hmm.

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