This came up in my meditation app this morning and I wrote it down to remember it.
I’m not having the best of emotions today. I feel pretty damn crappy actually and for no reason at all, which makes me feel worse than if I had something to be unhappy about. I’m unhappy that I’m unhappy and that makes for a pretty shitty day.
Am I acting on them? I’m not sure. I’m not changing anything. I’m not calling to tell people how crappy I think they are. I’m not on social media making the snarky comments I want to make. I’m not canceling all my plans.
I am making myself busy though. I stopped around noon today and thought (as I mindlessly scrolled through social media feeds, one right after the other), “This is a nasty feeling, maybe I should do something about it.”
Or maybe I shouldn’t.
I can’t always be thrilled to be alive. There isn’t always a reason or a trigger for a bad mood. It just is and no amount of tortilla chips and Pepsi is going to make it better (but I did get some anyway, just in case).
I focused on getting busy. I got one corner of my livingroom cleaned up from Christmas. I’m attempting to declutter the whole house and I did mutter “someone just burn it all down and help me start over” as I sorted through the old and broken ornaments. The dishes are done. Dinner is in the crockpot.
Maybe I’ll go for a walk in a bit. Or get me a nice shot of tequila on ice!
I know many of my friends and family are big fans of e-books, but I’ve never been able to love them. It’s not that I disapprove of them or am daunted by technology. I actually think it’s brilliant. I have the Kindle app on my phone and occasionally buy the e-book version of a book so that I can take it with me on a trip more easily or, when I’m reading a more provocative title, read it more privately, but I just can’t love them like I want to.
The truth of the matter is that I simply enjoy having the books that I have spent time in on my physical shelves, no matter how crowded they get. When I walk into the room, I can see them, and I get an instant sense of accomplishment. It’s a physical representation of my effort. I remember them and visit, like seeing old friends. When I’m bored, I scan through the titles sitting so prettily on my selves like small sentinels of my past. Sometimes I pull them off the shelves and leaf through them, see my notes, and read a paragraph. It warms me and brings me closer to… What? I don’t really know. All I do know is that it feels good and I don’t want to let them go.
Today I read this in “The Bookshop on the Corner” by Jenny Colgan,
“I think I just stopped seeing books around,” the man went on. “You know, on the bus, everyone used to read books. But then they were fiddling with their phones or those big phones, I don’t know what they’re called.”
“They were probably reading on their tablets,” said Nina loyally. She loved her e-reader too.
“Yes, I know,” said the man, “But I couldn’t see. I couldn’t see what they were reading or ask them if it was good or make a mental note to look for it later. It was if suddenly, one day, all the books simply disappeared.”
It brought up something I never thought of before and not in a negative, “these damn things,” kind of way, in a “something is missing” kind of way.
When I love a book, just by having it out in my hand in public, I’m sharing it with the readers around me. And if I see someone with a title or book cover that looks interesting, I can make a note of it without saying a word. We communicate with the people around us even when we don’t think we are! It’s a covert operation. The perfect introvert sharing opportunity.
When we’re looking at our e-readers, most people assume we’re busy talking to another person, so they don’t want to interrupt. But having a book out sitting next to you at the coffee shop, reading at the park or on the bus, is a conversation starter for those around you. “Oh! I love that book!” or “I was thinking about getting that. Is it good?” are great ways to start talking to a stranger. If they don’t want to be bothered, they’ll cut it short and I can move on. But if they’re interested in sharing about the book, they’ll keep talking and I’ll be in heaven. It’s a win/win situation.
I think I’ll start carrying a purse again, one big enough to have a novel in it that I can pick up and read while I’m in line or waiting for a friend. Who knows what conversations it might start or who it will inspire to pick up and read it too?
“However much we may admire the orator’s occasional bursts of eloquence, the noblest written words are commonly far behind or above the fleeting spoken language as the firmament with its stars is behind the clouds. There are the stars, and they who can may read them. The astronomers forever comment on and observe them. They are not exhalations like our daily colloquies and vaporous breath. What is called eloquence in the forum is commonly found to be rhetoric in the study. The orator yields to the inspiration of the transient occasion, and speaks to the mob before him, to those who can hear him; but the writer, whose more equable life is his occasion, and who would be distracted by the event and the crowd which inspire the orator, speaks to the intellect and heart of mankind, to all in any age who can understand him.” From Walden by Henry David Thoreau
This. Wow. This morning, sitting there with my book, distracted like a squirrel by anything that moves or makes a sound, I read this.
I wasn’t enjoying Walden very much until this chapter, Reading. And then I almost cried. He spoke to my soul with this chapter, from 100 years in the past. And that’s exactly what he was trying to say.
How can we relate old written words to our current tech-filled, fast paced life? Read this book and you’ll know. He writes of the telegraph, the train, newspapers, and city life as we would of social media, world travel, mainstream media news, and city life. Ha! And his point still stands.
Do we really have that much to do? Are we overwhelming ourselves and forgetting what it’s like to be human? Are we so filled with “business” that we lose site of the real point of our lives?
This morning, I got up from my reading to make breakfast as I usually do and thought, I should go back to eating better. I haven’t been feeling as healthy as I should the past few weeks and I know it’s mainly because I’ve been skipping a good breakfast and starting my days with coffee and toast or cereal. I walked into the kitchen, opened the fridge, and looked at the vegetables, eggs, cheese, that I had bought the day before.
“I don’t have time to cut up veggies and then make eggs.”
I don’t have time? Why? Because I have so many pressing responsibilities? Because I have to be at work? Because I have babies to feed and love? No. I don’t have time because I want to get back to the distraction of scrolling through social media feeds. I’ve lost track of my priorities.
I’m not condemning social media, fun, or friendships. I’m not saying sell all your possessions, quit your job and live off the land. I’m saying make time for what you really want. And to do that we have to start with knowing exactly what it is we want.
For me, that means deliberately setting everything else aside for a while and going back to basics, maybe even spending some serious time in solitude, to reflect and refocus. When I’m quiet and undisturbed from the outside, my mind begins to settle down and the real thinking begins.
I need to go back to my stars and stop looking at the clouds for direction.
“Be brave,” says my spirit.
“Wait,” says fear.
“Have courage,” says my soul.
“Not yet,” says worry.
“Dare,” says my heart.
-Rachel Marie Martin
All of this and more, it speaks to me on so many levels. Thinking about writing, relationships, and my own self-expression, I’m sitting here on a Monday morning, trying to think of something positive to add into the world. I can think of several, but I’m afraid the negativity is sucking me down. I want to write about THAT! I want to say what’s on my heart, but at the same time I don’t want to feed the monster.
There are two big things on my heart this morning. The first of which is news media. Why do we keep watching these people, the vultures of all the ugliest parts of our world? They feed off our despair, our pain, and then feed it back to us as if they are doing some good for the world. “The people have a right to know!” and “Freedom of the press!” is what I hear, but what I see is a group of people getting in the way, clamoring for a good view, and speculating to the world about the disaster that has just happened, spreading fear and terror to the masses. Why? If something terrible is happening in another state, is there anything I can do at that moment to fix it? No. Is there something I should know to stay safe where I am at the moment, therefore needing the information? No. The only reason they are on the tv is to get me to watch, to raise their ratings, and to sell advertising time. This is not news, it’s sensationalism for ratings. It’s making money off people’s fears and insecurities. It took me less than five minutes to be reminded of why I do not watch these so-called news channels.
The second thing is this idea of “stopping hate,” as if hate is what is driving people to hurt each other these days. Newsflash: People have always hated other people. Do you know what’s worse than hate? Despair. We can hate another person and feel no need to take any action against them. But when we despair, when we feel there is no other way, that we have nothing to lose, we lash out in anger. A person in despair acts out in many ways, all of which are prevalent these days. Some medicate themselves with drugs and alcohol, some do themselves harm in other ways, physically and mentally. Some “live for the day” and throw themselves into hedonism, following every desire hoping it will bring them momentary joy. And some commit violence against others. Like a child without the means to communicate his anquish, he decides he has no other choice but to hurt others the way he is hurting, and he’ll use any tool he can find.
How can we help? I can think of a simple way. Stop sharing it on your social media. I know we think we’re helping our cause by raising awareness, but we’re not. We’re only causing people to despair. Every time we point out another hopeless cause, every time we point out the cruelty, the injustice, the hate we find in the world and then blame it on someone else, we create more despair. It’s hard not to do it. When I see how much one person is hurting another, or hear of one cause I believe if we only put our minds to we could fix, it’s hard not click “share” and show others in the hope they will join me against it. But that’s the problem. We’re all trying to get others to join us AGAINST something or someone.
What can I do to help? Spread hope. Spread joy. Share the highs. Share the love. There is so much in this world that is better than it has ever been. Why focus on what is not?
As I sat eating breakfast with my teenage son, discussing these feelings I have, the sadness I find in my social media feeds, he was baffled. His young friends and the pages he follows don’t seem to have this urge to share the negativity for the most part. It seems that’s an “old person” way to use the new technology. We have something to learn from our children.
A couple years ago, my sons taught me how to change my social media feed by unfollowing friends that only post the negative, and not liking and following news channels. I find my news in slower media forms, printed magazines and newspapers. That simple change filled my social media feeds with positivity, science, religion, relationships, and writers I love. It’s been a wonderful change. I do still have a few friends that consistently share the ugliest of things. I love them but I have to tune them out for my own sanity. And then, when something like this past weekend happens, even my most positive friends are shaken, and rightly so. That’s when I choose to put my phone down completely and let the dust settle. I don’t need to know the details as they happen. I don’t need the play by play, the body count changes, or the speculations as to why it happened. That doesn’t mean that I don’t care. It means I’ll wait until the event is over and read about it in a rational and complete way, one that doesn’t tear at my heart as if my own child is dying in my arms for days. Since I can’t control what others post, and I know it will hurt me for no useful reason, I put my phone down and I turn the tv off. I turn to my home, my family, my friends and my local community and live.
What if we all did that? The honest truth is that in this world, people are hurting each other and dying every single day, all over the world. It cannot be avoided. It cannot be worried and legislated away. The only thing that will make anything better is love. Love those around you, love them unconditionally whether they “hate” or not. Don’t push more people into despair by shutting them out. Stop giving people more reasons to feel like they have no other choice but to fight. Love people even when they make bad choices, or choices you believe are wrong. Love people when they are angry and love them when they hate you.
Start creating joy around you. Start creating love. Start sharing love, unconditionally and in as many ways with as many people as you can. And you can start with your own social media feed!
Inspired by an old podcast interview by Tim Ferriss yesterday and an amazing blog I found this morning called Sagittarius Viking, I’ve decided to add a new page to my website called, “It’s Friday my…Friends!”
Every Friday I plan, I say “plan” here because what actually happens is usually far from what I planned much like most of my life, I PLAN on creating a candid, what’s going on around here post. It’ll be short and sweet. A “Things I’m thinking about, doing, noticed, or reading” kind of post.
How should I do this? I could just ramble on every Friday, but I don’t want to bore you! How about a set list of things?
Picture of the week, Complaint/Venting, Something I Learned, Something I Listened To, and Something I’m Reading, Quote (Sometimes),
Picture of the week!
Abe, my sweet prince, loves to sit next to me while I read in the morning. I guess I got up for too many cups of coffee today because he looked a little annoyed…and it was adorable!
Complaint! I feel like I got nothing done this week! I took my older son the airport, which took all day. The next day I was exhausted. Then I had a lunch date with a friend…an hour and half away. It was worth it though. Something I constantly struggle with is keeping focused and on track. I’m easily distracted, and I tend to feel like I have twenty kites up in the air and they’re all about to fly away with me!
Something I Learned! Much to my most painful surprise, I learned that I may be happily married to the love of my life, but I’ll still make a fool out of myself in front of attractive men.
Something I Listened To! I love podcasts! I listen to them while driving or while I’m doing the dishes. Sometimes I listen and play video games. This week it was Tim Ferriss’ interview with Derek Severs from a few years ago. It may be an old interview, but it was perfect timing for me!
Something I’m Reading! I have two books open at the moment. “Bowling Alone: The Collapse and Revival of American Community” by Robert Putnam. Sounds depressing, especially since it was written twenty years ago, but it’s not. It’s slow reading for me, about twenty pages a day, but I’m really getting a lot out of it. I’ve got loads of notes and I’m doing my best to look up newer statistics and wondering if he, or someone else, has written a follow-up.
“The Goldfinch” by Donna Tartt. When I got this, I had no idea what it would be about. I’m nearly halfway through and I’m still wondering. I’m loving every page though and just dying to know where she’s going to go with all this!
Quote! I’m need to keep better track of the quotes I find awesome, but here’s the one I want to share today. It’s from that interview with Derek Severs
“I think I would make a billboard that would say, It Won’t Make You Happy, and I would place it outside any big shopping mall, or car dealer. So, ideally –you know what would be a fun project, actually, would be to buy and train thousands of parrots to say, it won’t make you happy!”
Nothing makes you happy. Happy is the side effect feeling you get when you’re doing things in the right frame of mind…like right now as I’m writing this, after fighting sitting down and writing all morning long. I finally showed up and then the happiness overflowed.
They say, “small things impress small minds,” but I disagree.
It takes a curious mind to notice the small things, to marvel at intricacies, to notice the things everyone else seems to take for granted.
“Don’t Sweat the Small Stuff,” they say. But the big stuff is made up of the small stuff.
Big things are complicated and difficult to tackle. But if we can straighten out a few of the small things, wouldn’t that change the big thing that it’s a part of?
I think I’ll keep being impressed by the little things; the tiny flowers in the desert, the micro conversations on the way to the grocery store, the cute game my son found that he thought I’d enjoy.
I think I’ll keep doing the small things; washing the dishes, sending a text, touching my husband as I walk by.
All those little things do make up the whole. And when I look back on my whole life, I’ll be able to see the big picture I made with all those tiny dots of color.
I found Wild Woman Sisterhood about a year ago and have loved just about everything they post. I am only saddened by the negativity of the Facebook comments they seem to get. I’m not sure if it’s social media itself or the people that tend to follow, but many commenters seem so self-centered, immature, and negative. Then again, maybe it’s just the written word that causes the confusion. It’s hard to write one or two lines and get a solid meaning across.
When I see a post on any page that I can’t get behind or doesn’t apply to me, I just keep scrolling. I’m sure it’s out in the universe for someone. That someone isn’t me at the moment. There are times when I do make a comment when I disagree, but it’s usually because I know the person that posted it personally. I’m talking to them directly, just as if they had said something over coffee. I don’t agree and I want to talk about that. But I’d never do that to a stranger and I especially wouldn’t do it on a social media post.
Maybe I just use it differently.
They posted something beautiful this morning and I felt compelled to add my own ideas to it. I kept thinking about it all morning. I even talked about it with my son as we went hiking through the desert.
My morning routine was broken up today because he wanted to go hiking and, since it’s warming up out here in the desert, it couldn’t wait until the afternoon. After a lunch, a rest, and the dishes, I sat down to write, and the idea was still swimming around in my heart.
Here’s the quote.
And this was my comment.
Such a beautiful sentiment!
A caged bird is “loved” too. But the best love is the kind that supports freely, the kind that makes you feel like you can do anything, including walking away.
That kind of love is precious.
I’m bound to my love, not because I feel like I have to stay but because I want to, because here, with my partner’s love, is where I grow and thrive best!
And then, when someone insisted that a caged bird is not really loved at all…
The person who caged it does believe they love it. They love it as an object to be taken care of like a book, pen, or chair.
Humans should never be loved that way, but we often treat each other as objects instead of beings. That doesn’t mean we don’t love each other. It means we haven’t grown enough to know the difference yet.
It takes a strong person to love another human as a separate being and not an object.
Lovers that treat their partners as objects to be kept, get scared and angry when their love isn’t returned or if their partner changes their mind.
Parents treat their children as pets, something to be controlled and cared for, instead of distinct individuals with their own wants, needs, and agendas.
And sometimes we treat our friends that way when we insist that they spend time with us and only us, as if they aren’t living their own life when we aren’t around.
Loving someone and letting them go, allowing them the space to be free, to say no to us, to walk away, is terrifying.
What if they find someone better? If you loved them, you’d want them to if they could.
What if they grow away from me? If you loved them, you’d want them to be the best they can be with or without you.
What if? Don’t ruin the time you have with your loved ones worrying about the future. Love them completely right now, so if the worst happens, you have all those beautiful memories to look back on.
If you LOVE someone, something, set it free. If it doesn’t come back…
Hunt it down! That’s what my Grandpa used to laugh and say! But we all know that just doesn’t work. The caged bird is safe and secure, but it will never fulfill its true reason for being on this earth.
The caged human is the same. She will never reach her own potential. He will never be who he was truly meant to be.
Love them but do not cage them. Support them, share with them, help them, but set them free and watch what they become.
“No man is an island entire of itself; every man is a piece of the continent, a part of the main; if a clod be washed away by the sea, Europe is the less, as well as if a promontory were, as well as any manner of thy friends or of thine own were; any man’s death diminishes me, because I am involved in mankind. And therefore never send to know for whom the bell tolls; it tolls for thee.” – John Donne
The part I’m talking about starts at 8:40 but at 10:00 he says it most clearly. I’ll paraphrase. “We’re a drop in the ocean. If we separate ourselves completely, we’ll dry up.”
We all feel the longing to connect with other human beings at some level.
Christians say that God is in us, that we are created in His image, that we have a soul. What if that soul is actually a part of God and therefore, we are all connected in that way?
Remember the Borg from Star Trek Next Generation? All of the Borg are connected by a hive mind. When one is separated, it continues to communicate with the hive and becomes anxious, longing to return to the hive. If there is a small group of them, they operate as a smaller hive and aren’t as lost, but they still work toward reuniting with their source. What if we are like that with God?
What if that feeling of being disconnected and lost is because we have been separated from the source and now it’s getting worse because we’ve become separate from each other? On this physical plane, we can’t completely return to God, but we connect in small groups to ease our separation anxiety until we can. Or at least we used to.
When asked which was the most important commandment, “Jesus replied: “‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.’This is the first and greatest commandment. And the second is like it: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’ All the Law and the Prophets hang on these two commandments.” Matthew 22:37-40
To love the Lord God with all my heart, soul, and mind, is to honor the creator. To love my neighbor as I would myself, is to honor the creator in them. We love them on earth until we can all return as one to God.
I’m finally getting to The Brothers Karamazov this week. It’s been on my shelf since January and I kept putting it off because there were easier books to read. I love Pevear and Volokhonsky’s translations of Dostoevsky and I’ve actually been looking forward to reading this. I’m already enchanted, although it is complicated and I can only stick with reading it for about an hour at a time. I’ve ordered a couple easier books to fill in my daily three hours I hope to achieve this year!
I thought I’d write about some of lines I highlighted as I go instead of waiting until the end. I know this is a LONG and pretty dry book for most, but it does have some interesting thoughts in it!
Here’s what I have today!
Page 52 “If you are repentant, it means that you love. And if you love, you already belong to God…with love everything is bought, everything is saved.”
LOVE that! What does repentant mean? “Feeling sincere remorse or regret.” What other reason would you feel that way about something you’ve done hurting someone if you didn’t love that person? I regret cutting off the person behind me on the freeway because I recognize their humanity and I love them. I didn’t mean to, or I did mean to but didn’t realize it would make them so angry. As a Christian, we believe God is love. To love is be part of God. To love is to recognize the image of God in all of us.
Page 57 “’I love mankind’, he said, ‘but I am amazed at myself: the more I love mankind in general, the less I love people in particular, that is, individually, as separate persons.’”
And then this one, “and yet I am incapable of living in the same room with anyone even for two days, this I know from experience. As soon as someone is there, close to me, his personality oppresses my self-esteem and restricts my freedom.”
Don’t I know it! Actually, I underlined the first line but the next one is funnier to me and I can really relate to it. The first line confuses me. Why would that be? I can understand thinking that when you really get to know individual people and try to love them, the more you don’t love mankind as a whole. But this is the opposite? Not sure what he means here.
Page 64 “What would become of him if the Church, too, punished him with excommunication each time immediately after the law of the state has punished him? Surely there could be no greater despair, at least for a Russian criminal, for Russian criminals still have faith. Through who knows: perhaps a terrible thing would happen then – the loss of faith, perhaps, would occur in the desperate heart of the criminal, and what then? But the Church, like a mother, tender and loving, withholds from active punishment, for even without her punishment, the wrongdoer is already too painfully punished by the state court, and at least someone should pity him.”
Such a pretty picture. If you punish a person so much that they are completely outside of society and cannot return, you may as well kill them because they will become more dangerous to society. It gives a human no reason whatsoever to become a better person. The State may punish you for breaking its rules, but the Church should still honor your soul and treat you as a brother.
Page 67 “A socialist Christian is more dangerous than a socialist atheist.”
Thinking about that one. Maybe because you can damage or destroy a person’s soul by it, not just their life on this earth? Socialism requires force and if a Christian Church were to force you to participate in socialism and punish you by ostracism if you did not comply, it may turn you against Jesus and forever separate you from God.
Page 69 “…European liberalism in general, and even our Russian liberal dilettantism, has long and frequently confused the final results of socialism with those of Christianity.”
140 years ago! I hear or at least see memes about Jesus being a socialist so often and it seems like such a shallow understanding of what Jesus preached. Again, socialism requires force to accomplish its goals. If people could leave, take their money and labor elsewhere, it wouldn’t work. Jesus preaches free will and a voluntary acceptance of His gifts. You could say that it is forced because to accept it means you “go to hell” but that can be debated as well. I personally don’t believe in a literal hell but a figurative one. Jesus’ gift is a reunion with God after death. Without him, our body dies and we are forever separated from Him. You cannot have what you do not accept freely. I realize that can be debated and I respect that, but these are my views.
Page 77 “Let worldly men follow their dead with tears; here we rejoice over a departing father.”
Isn’t that what Jesus said to do? Let the dead bury their own dead. We, who have accepted the gift of Jesus of everlasting life with Him, should be rejoicing to know that those who leave this world with that gift go to be forever with the Lord in joy and we will see them again soon. I didn’t grieve that much over the “loss” of my Grandmother. I miss her sometimes. I wonder what she would do or say about things that are happening now. I feel like she’s on a long trip without me and we will be reunited someday. She isn’t gone. She’s having the time of her life with God. How can I be sad? It’s the same when my kids are off somewhere doings something awesome or my Mom is living up in Fernley. They are happy. Why would I not want my loved ones to be happy, even if it is without me? How could anyone be so selfish.
“Max glanced at him for a moment. They had found each other – this was the moment. Did they both realize it? With those few words a bridge had been built. Max knew he had been seen through by Onno as never before, just as Onno felt understood by Max, because his aggressive irony had not met with resistance, as it invariably did, but with a laugh that had something invulnerable about it. They had recognized each other. A little embarrassed by the situation, they were silent for a few minutes.”
Ever meet a new friend like this? I hope you have. It’s like falling in love and lasts forever. Till death do you part! The friendship between these two men and what happened to them is what I liked most about this book and I’m not sure it’s what the book was really about. Or was it?
