The Title of this Blog is Flawed

From the word go I have imbued this blog with the same sort of "safety first", "hedge your bets" nonsense which I default to in most aspects of my life (short of over-committing my time socially). Words like "attempt", "try", "just" (as in "I was just trying to..."), etc. are weak, shifty words. This world needs stronger words, stronger thoughts, stronger actions. These can take place in a delicate context. Strong need not be used in its male metaphor. It can take more strength to make yourself vulnerable than to "be strong" and keep yourself safe. Risk, live, love. For god's sake, start now before more of your life is wasted. Yes, that means me too.

Disappointment and Anger Mis-managed

Thus far, by my reckoning, I have failed in all of my resolutions. This begs the question, is it better to dream big and fall short or adjust for a better possibility of success? I would argue the first option is better. Probably since my collegiate experience, which I allowed to further erode my self-confidence, I have tried to pull back, to become "more realistic" in my goals and expectations. This truly was a grave error. However, what other options are we presented with in our society? What behaviors are rewarded? Tenacity can be rewarded in certain circumstances, but it seems only when that tenacity is applied towards expected behaviors (working hard at a job, a project at work, losing weight, etc). I am afraid of failure. I mistakenly shy away from it instead of charging headlong into it's sometimes painful embrace. I overthink myself into inaction and inactivity, trying to figure out the "best" course of action as a feeble attempt at combating failure, while procrastinating action. Oftentimes, "failure" actually translates to unexpected result. We have expectations of how things will look, how they will feel, how they will be manifested, but oftentimes these constructs we have built make us rigid. If I had chosen to stay in California after the relationship I was moving for deteriorated and fell apart, I would not have met my wife, nor would I be a father.

This clumsily moves us into anger mis-management. I feel overly responsible for people and things that are not my responsibility. This can carry over into my work, even when I do not believe it to be important to life at large. I have a reasonably good paying job, with very good health benefits. This puts me a leg up over many other people in this country, which causes contradictory feelings of relief and guilt. My current job is similar to that which I left behind in California. I had told myself I was going to look for something different, yet it fell in my lap, and I accepted it. I now find myself fighting for my time, fighting for time with my family, time for myself, time without phone calls telling me that something needs my attention. I take this anger at myself for my cowardice at settling, at being safe, at not being honest with myself about what I want, and not being honest with others about the same, and take them out on those who care about me. This is not pre-meditated, but it happens nonetheless. As a new father, I feel a weight of reponsibility on my shoulders. It can even be called burdensome. Not only is there physical well-being to be concerned about, but there is also emotional and mental well-being as well. There are many things I feel are important to impart to my daughter, many lessons that I feel ill-equiped to dispense and share. One thing is becoming clear to me. By choosing cowardice, I am teaching her a powerful lesson about living one's life. It is important for me to provide an example of living beliefs instead of simply espousing them or discussing them in safe and non-challenging conversations. I must relinquish my fear of failure. I must begin to believe in myself. However, putting the pressure of "must" on myself tends to ensure that exactly the opposite will happen. I do not know how the worrier became so powerful in myself, I do not know what I am trying to protect myself from. Actually, that is not entirely true. I am afraid of feeling too much. I am afraid of being hurt. I am afraid of losing myself. After experiencing a more serious bout with depression in college, I have become afraid of my own emotions power, seeing how sadness and despair could bring me to my knees, to the point of no return. I instead have tried to take my emotions and logicize them, trying to place them through a filter of reason where I can contain them. Yet invariably, they break loose. Anger, fury, love, joy, sadness all surge through me at different times like an electrical storm. There are times I feel that the only time when my course of action is clear is when I am angry, and the arguing voices within me are silenced by its presence. How can I attain a clear sense of purpose without invoking the high costs of emotional grappling and the draining of energy that can desperately be used elsewhere? I have no answers right now. Perhaps this is my pennance for feeling smug and enlightened over the winter and summer of 2008. I leave this post, like many things, unfinished.

Excerpt from "A Sideways Look at Time" by Jay Griffiths

The ancient Greeks had different gods for time's different aspects (including the god of the moment for weeding, the god of the moment of horses panicking, the god of the moment when a party suddenly falls silent). One of the most important was Chronos who gives his name to absolute time, linear, chronological and quantifiable. But the Greeks had another, far more slippery and colorful, god of time, Kairos. Kairos was the god of timing, of opportunity, of chance and mischance, of different aspects of time, the auspicious and the not-so-auspicious. Time qualitative. If you sleep because the clock tells you it's way past your bedtime, that is chronological time: whereas if you sleep because you're tired, that is kairological time. If you eat biscuits when you're hungry, that is kairological: wheareas if you eat by the clock, that is chronological time. (In English there is that quaint-sounding mid-morning meal literally named for the clock: elevenses.) Children, needless to say, live kairologically until winkled out of it. Chronos was considered by the Ancient Greeks, and the modern West, as superior to Kairos. Astrology is time considered kairologically: in Hindu life, for instance, the time of the individual and that of the cosmos are considered inseparable. The traditional zodiacal animals of Korea are also used to name the twelve-hour periods into which the day is divided and impart their characteristics to each period and to those born in that period. While astrologers (and, I'm tempted to say, "Kairopractors" but I won't) see a rainbow of colors in time, the dominant calendar of the West is strictly magnolia.

Kairological time has a different sense of movement compared to chronological time. For a rough comparison, contrast an urban with a rural day. In cities, where time is most chronological, you move into the future, facing forwards, your progress through the day is like an arrow while the day itself "stays still," for time is not given by the day but is man-made, culturally given, and defined by the working-day or rush-hours. In a rural place, days roll over the horizon at you, round and gold as the sun, time moves towards you and is nature-given, defined by sun or stars or rainstorms. In this more kairological time, the future comes towards you (l'avenir, in French, expresses that, or "Christmas is coming") and recedes behind you while you may well stay still, standing in the present-the only place which is ever really anyone's to stand in. This experience of time, so unlike the urban, is one reason why the countryside, and access to it, is so vital in overurbanized societies; it offers a kinder time. 

Kind but fluky. If chronological time is like the worldwide suburbia, kairological time is the genius loci, the spirit of that particular moment. Kairological time is far richer-far trickier-a concept; time enlivened and various, time as elastic and fertile as an ovulatory cascade.

Tardiness and Waking Life

Tardy, as usual, here are my resolutions for 2009. 

A brief query: By saying things like "tardy, as usual" am I helping to create this behavior? 

Resolutions begin here:

-Sing at least every other day, whether for a minute or an hour.

-Examine my definition/sense of self in an attempt to remove my fear of "losing myself". I would like to become more fluid in my definition of "I" and "me" in the attempt at becoming more fluid in the changing streams of life.

-Have faith. I would like to trust more that I will be provided for (worry not required) by the universe. This will be particularly challenging to the strong planner instincts that have been cultivated previously.

-Start a soap company. My initial goal will be to sell one bar of soap.

-Scrutinize my spending of both time and money. I would like to consume less and produce more.

-Exercise more. I am walking every day, but would like to add in some activities that are more challenging muscularly. My goal is to do this at least every other day.

-Learn to play the djembe. For those of you who have not seen "The Visitor", do so.

I will some back to these from time to time and comment on them, or it may be subject to a new post. The editor in me already is itchy due to some of the language/phrasing, but I am choosing to leave it in its original form as sent via email to the Project 2009 crowd.