Busy and Uninspired, or Just Lazy??

It makes me wonder if the discipline that seems to be required to propagate ones ideas on a successful (or even not successful) blog is actually not discipline but an intense hubris.

I am NOT a disciplined person. I am not organized, despite the fact that persons constantly, with no reasonable evidence to substantiate such a though, insist that I am. I procrastinate, usually to my own extreme detriment. I have no willpower, no follow-through, and suffer from the distraction ailment called (as by divine friend P calls it) “Shiny Object Syndrome.” I recently referred to my inability to remain focused on one particular topic for any longer than it takes to learn the most rudimentary elements of said topic as Intellectual ADD. I am not proud of these faults – they induce much personal shame. But I have yet to cultivate the level of awareness that allows me to avoid these missteps rather than just recognize them.

The quintessential example of this struggle is contained in the date of the previous post. A five month distraction interjected by the brief creation of another 3-post blog that I ultimately deleted upon realizing that it was a cheap attempt to keep musing without acknowledging how un-disciplined I am with this blog.

And yet everyday around the globe, thousands of individuals, many with horrid things to say, many with nothing to say, manage to eek out one revolting or bland, or inane post after another. Does this mean that they maintain a hyper-high level of personal organization? Or is the need to hear (type) their own thoughts and opinions so strong that blogging becomes like breathing –each snarky opinion sent out onto the worldwide web really an insidious form of life-support.

Or perhaps, despite my disregard or often abject disdain for their opinions, I am jealous of their commitment to their blog. I walk a fine line between being technologically savvy and technologically stupid. Maybe my inability to achieve what the smallest schoolchild, the silliest celebrity and the sickest psychopath do with such ease just make me feel more the latter than the former.

Words

Perhaps tied into the complete avoidance of the financial tasks to which I should be attending, today has been a bubbling font of all things literary. Beginning with several highly articulate and interesting blog entries listed on the amazing Fearless Voices section of the Huffington Post, to the wealth of words that is the New York Times online edition (sorry, the paper version is sometimes hard to come by in my neck of the woods), through two separate reviews of the increasingly intriguing book Cultural Amnesia by Clive James, my attention was finally directed to D.H. Lawrence, Mabel Dodge Luhan and her amazing house in Taos which now hosts writer workshops.

Whew!

It is a rare day when I am not delighted by an influx of the well-written (and sometimes not-so-well-written) word into my little world. An impassioned op-ed, a crisp, concise news piece or even the enticing advertisement of an artistically inclined workshop makes me long for an occupation that involves this daily wordplay. But alas, I have never been able to parlay my enjoyment of words in to a personal practice.

Yesterday, post-Easter services, my lovely friend G. and I were musing on our ideal occupations (mine first and foremost being a tie between owning a farm and working for National Public Radio) and in jest I mentioned that I would like a job as a trivia researcher. After today’s wordy wonderland, I realize that that is only partially true. Perhaps it is not trivia per se that appeals to me, but the access to the vast catalogues of information and opinions that over time have so inspired others that they felt compelled to document them for cultural consumption. To inhale years of passionate pursuits like an exquisite gourmet delicacy is made better only by knowing that another fabulous course is on its way.

Rebirth

How much can happen in three months? Oddly, a lot and absolutely nothing at all.

It has been almost three months since the last post and I feel like I’m simultaneously mired in the muck and slowly slogging my way out. These past weeks have been perpetually overshadowed by the rampant dysfunction that has been left in the wake of my mother-in-law’s passing. It has been said that something like a death will either bring a family together or drive it apart. But is it possible to do both? These exhausting inter-personal relationships reached a psychotic crescendo at a family wedding in one horrible drunken flame out. Since that time, whether it be from the meritorious standpoint of self-preservation or the completely selfish standpoint of “enough is enough”, I have found it hard to muster the desire to engage with any of them on anything more than a superficially courteous level.

Intellectually I know that this attitude is cruel considering the circumstance, but even still I felt like Robert Shaw in “Jaws” sliding off the edge of the boat to be consumed by the shark. (Highly melodramatic I know, but metaphorically consumption is consumption, and if not film sharks, than fire or some other cliché) Is there such a thing as compassionate detachment? Is there a way to offer love and support without being drained by the vampires of grief? And how much bad behavior can be chalked up to pain and how much is just bad behavior? This is my struggle.

Even still, I am hopeful for me. This is the time to take ownership. Elaborate dreams will never see reality without pedestrian effort, so this spring is all about rebirth – mine. Where it will lead me, I don’t know. But this time, I want to remember the ride. And when I arrive somewhere – even if it is just a way point, I don’t want to think “How did I get here?”

“Tell me, what is it you plan to do with your one wild and precious life?”
- Mary Oliver

How do I love my sparks as much as I love my bonfires?

I was talking to my divine friend P. on the phone today and discussing the idea of whether it is wise to revisit things later in life that profoundly affected you when you were young (i.e. literature, music, etc.) for fear of being disappointed in who you were then. A thought which not surprisingly spring-boarded to the question of whether in revisiting things later in life that profoundly affected you when you were young, is it possible to also be disappointed in who you are now. P. thinks definitely no – all life experiences, for lack of a better phrase, increase one’s value rather than detract from it. Myself, I am not so sure. Sometimes I look back on the person I was and see a glowing individual compared to the dim figure that I currently cast. But then again, am I just glowing in hindsight? Was I just as dim to myself then as I feel now? Are we ever really able to gauge our luminescence, or is it only truly captured in the eyes of others or in the spectral photos that are our memories?

My lovely Mother-in-law passed away on December 27th. I know that she felt herself to be dim in comparison to her radiant past self. This is so sad because in truth, until the end, she possessed a beautiful inner light.

How do we teach ourselves and others to recognize the ever-evolving light within? Perhaps not as bright at certain times as others, but always captivating. How do we appreciate the moments that are raging pyres without discounting those that are flickering flames?

Since more often than not I feel inferior to my past selves, perhaps this should be a focus for my new year. How do I love my sparks as much as I love my bonfires?

The big thinker for today:

"We are born with a seed of selfhood that contains the spiritual DNA of our uniqueness - an encoded birthright knowledge of who we are, why we are here, and how we are related to others.”

But what happens if we lose our awareness of this seed, or even worse, if we had no awareness of it to begin with? If we do not tend it, do we kill it? Or does it merely go dormant, waiting for us to reestablish the conditions necessary for it to germinate.

I would hope that this seed of selfhood, the design of our very nature, is perennial – with the ability to weather the harshest winter of our soul and grow again stronger and more vital when the warm spring of possibility blows across our consciousness. That a glimpse of familiar leaves and stalks reminds us what is planted and allows us to imagine the scent and beauty of our inherent bloom.

It is an interesting thought considering the gardens of summer are dying off and the land is growing stark. Perhaps even rumination on this idea needs the quiet of fall and winter to truly take root and yield understanding.

Deep horticultural metaphors – self-indulgent musings or a yet untapped vein of insight??

Adding yet another layer to the speech conundrum...

Words are a heavy thing...they weigh you down. If birds talked, they couldn't fly.

"The question is not is there life after death but Is there life before death?"
- John Kabat-Zinn

Hmmmmm

Not all of the important changes in your life need to be dramatic, Hollywood-like moments of revelation. Having a major turning point or epiphany is nice, but it can be overrated. You don't need to make a splash to make a change.

True growth happens slowly ... so slowly that sometimes (like now) you might not even be aware of it. Look around today -- did you realize that right now, you're in one of the biggest transitional periods of your life? Let it unfold -- enjoy it.

This thought was provided courtesy of Astrology.com. Sound advice – especially in an era where even the smallest event is dipped in glitter and trotted out to the masses as a pivotal point in the history of man.
But is this really one of the biggest transitional periods of my life?
Perhaps (how scary is that!!)
There are times when I see glimmers of where I think I would like to be, shining through cracks in my usually muddled existence. Words or phrases ‘click”, coincidences - and yes, I know, there are no REAL coincidences, adopt a karmic sheen, the right message comes at the right time...

Lord knows that my dubious mental default setting assures me that I am stagnant, but I don’t think that that is true. Maybe “slowly” is slowly like the grass growing or an apple ripening – not visible to the naked eye. Maybe the time-lapse record of hindsight will reveal today to be a glorious streak in the sky of self-actualization. But if my pace is so languid that I can’t yet see my footprints in the soft earth, am I making progress?

An email I received today highlighted this quote:

You have brains in your head.
You have feet in your shoes.
You can steer yourself in any direction you choose.
You're on your own. And you know what you know.
You are the woman who'll decide where to go."
- Dr. Seuss

Believing that this is the right message at the right time, I have decided that I do in fact have confidence in my ability to decide where to go. Now I must choose a direction.

“Meaning is not something you stumble across, like the answer to a riddle or the prize in a treasure hunt. Meaning is something you build into your life. You build it out of your own past, out of your affections and loyalties, out of the experience of humankind as it is passed on to you, out of your own talent and understanding, out of the things you believe in, out of the things and people you love, out of the values for which you are willing to sacrifice something. The ingredients are there. You are the only one who can put them together into that unique pattern that will be your life. Let it be a life that has dignity and meaning for you. If it does, then the particular balance of success or failure is of less account.”

- John W. Gardner
author of Excellence and Self-Renewal

So begins a public documentation of the journey to reveal my path to a place of purpose…