kodecy

Periodic record #2: Reintegration

February 4th, 2023

It’s been a week since my last post — I suppose I should get on an update.

Honestly, although things are moving forward in Real Life, I’m feeling the stress of the situation. This particularly has to do with starting to deal with other people again — online and off. It also has to do with the employment situation. And the technology situation, and the fact that I’ve rarely been writing since the beginning of the year. As I’ve written before, sometimes I just don’t want to see what’s in my brain.

Writing less may be more influential than I suspect, where it comes to feelings of wellness (or a diminished level of them). I seem to have slipped into a place where I’m taking better physical care of myself, and at the same time, I’m feeling tension and unrest.

There are other, legitimate, reasons for me to feel unrest. They mostly have to do with the specter of re-integrating into society after three years of isolation. I suppose that includes all the negative aspects of same: dealing with other people, when people don’t know how to act in public.

That, then, comes with the risk of illness. And illness — particularly serious illness — is destabilizing, at the least.

I am not unaware that I am at this point still completely dependent; even more so as my outside contacts (work and social) have been cut down by COVID. So I’ve been trying to talk to people outside my immediate circle. If something happens and I have to step up, I’m going to need support — and I can’t depend on the people who support me now, to support me for the rest of my life.

I don’t know if that qualifies as “fearing” something negative will happen, or just being aware that something negative, could happen, and if it does, it will help to be more prepared than I am. The glaring place where this is true, has to do with driving; but no one’s pushing me to get a license or renew my permit. I’m not sure why, except for the fact that the world is basically crazy right now, and I don’t need some rando pitching a fit because I’m driving cautiously.

Dealing with other people was initially forced with home repairs…which screwed up my sleep for a week. It’s not fun to have strangers going in and out. For a week.

Not to mention a surprise family visit, during which we were invited to another family gathering.

So, earlier this week, I had to catch up on all of my laundry (four loads, not including the sheets). We had to shift furniture around, which was shifted back yesterday — and provoked an effort on my part to reorganize the art and craft space (which I hadn’t used for a week, even though I had wanted to).

Yesterday, I also went through the contents of the banker’s box I had first prepared during the fires two years ago, in case we had to evacuate. It had begun to smell like mold; I needed to take out what I wanted to keep.

I hadn’t taken the opportunity at the outset to go through all of my folders to see what I really needed, and what I didn’t. There were also things I needed to find (to apply for jobs) which were buried in there — at least, if I wanted to mention all the Community College courses I’ve taken. I can probably be discriminating when mentioning the Continuing Education, though.

While I was at it, I went through the file drawer attached to my desk. Now I have a ream of paper to shred.

There are at least two paper shredders in this house, so I’m not too worried: but still, this is a little less than two decades’ worth of papers. The major concern is that I’m going to overheat or break the (loud, old, dusty) paper shredder in the study; because I’m not using the nice one.

I was so concerned with cleaning this up, that the first instance in which I looked up to see the time — technically, this morning (writing from 11:05 PM on Friday, February 3) — it was around 12:30 AM. I didn’t end up going to bed, until 1:30 AM. Then I ended up waking again around 5 AM. It gets worse from there, really.

I still have to dust and vacuum the bedroom; clean the vanity (again) because the drilling from the other room made ceiling particles fall on the counters; and I want to dust and vacuum the study simply because I’ve resumed using it, and there must be years of dust on some of the books (and behind some of the books). I know for a fact that this is the case on the bedroom shelves — which get dustier, faster.

And seriously, I haven’t had a really great time sleeping, since Sunday night/Monday morning. I shouldn’t be on the computer at all, right now: but I took a nap this afternoon for a little under three hours, just out of exhaustion. I haven’t written much that is substantive, recently, save for a few journal entries. I began this entry hoping that typing would be more stimulating than writing to myself in a book that could be lost or destroyed.

With the whole job-search thing, as well…I’m realizing that I’m probably going to have to be open to moving, to take a professional job in my field anytime soon. But that’s the norm, apparently. If I set my sights a little lower — at a Support Staff position — I might be able to stay in the same area. The difficulty comes with the fact that I have no experience working in a job like the one I’m aiming for…

…and then there is the possibility of becoming a Professional Editor, which is seeming, just…well, like a new path; not one for which, I’m already wholly prepared. The problem seems to be that I can only concentrate on one profession at a time, and my age makes it imperative to become gainfully employed, as soon as possible.

And really? I’m looking at Cataloging, now, specifically, as something I could do; although I realize that Metadata positions are likely what’s coming next. I actually haven’t been back to Python, so far. The question is whether I’ll actually need Computer Programming skills (as versus skill in batch-editing tools), if I am specifically a Cataloging Librarian…
Information Technology

January 26th, 2023

There are numerous reasons why it’s a good idea (for me, at least) to work towards gaining technical skills, where it comes to computing and networks. I’ve actually found a really nice job opportunity…which is more on the side of Information Technology, than Information Science. I’ve also been considering joining a group which covers both of those fields.

I’m not sure if I want to explain the differences between the two terms right now; or the opening I found…but it gives me hope. Essentially, I’m looking at a job in which I could be trained — and paid to be trained — instead of having to seek out Professional Development or relevant education on my own, outside of an employment situation. I wouldn’t even have thought to look at it, but began poring through some open Civil Service jobs, and got curious about this one.

As I heard recently, it would be good to question the idea I’m having trouble with: that it isn’t possible to be creative without large moral sacrifice. It is actually very nice to expand my view where it comes to what I’m willing to try.

What I’m looking at now — instead of having a mystical creative mission be my actual job and working to feed myself with something I don’t care about, or dislike, or which will eat up all of my time — is putting the job search and the job training (including on-the-job training) first, and dealing with my creative bent on my own time and on my own terms.

I’ve been trying to figure out how important it is to me to center my life around my creativity, as versus getting a good job and being creative on my off-hours. It just means that there is a shift in priorities and self-image from those I’ve been dealing with since I was 17. And my undergraduate degree doesn’t need to define me; it was just the best choice I could make, at the time.

I don’t think I really need to have big projects, in order to satisfy my creative impulses. For a long time, even just writing on WordPress has been an outlet that…well, has worked. (Those who have been following me for a long time, know that this is neither my first nor second blog on this platform; I’ve just taken the others down.)

If it meant that I had to take a low-end job that I hated and which wasted my talents, in order to lead, “a creative life,” on my off-hours, I’d drop the focus on creativity and work towards a better situation. That doesn’t mean I would stop being creative; it means that I’d channel it in a different way. Very possibly, a noncommercial way.

Using that type of angle, it becomes apparent that what I do in my off hours does not have to be something I can turn around into cash. In other words, I could work with beads, or write, or sew, and have a stable financial footing so that I would not have to sell my jewelry, or my writing (or become a seamstress). These would then literally be, “hobbies.”

It just seems like it would be much more of a stable, and less anxiety-inducing, life. Of course, work would likely not be free of anxiety, and would take up a lot of my free energy and concentration, at times — in addition to the occasional zero-day crisis. But I’m very interested in the fact that this is an entry-level job where I’d be trained, and it would likely be away from the public. I’m also aware, from having family in the Tech industry, how much of this work may be done, “winging it” — dealing with issues as they pop up, and not necessarily knowing what to do about them, beforehand.

I don’t know how far my thinking that computers and what can be done with them are, “cool,” will get me, when it comes to actually having to grapple with Information Technology. Nor do I know why I’m attracted to doing things which are hard, just because they’re hard. Maybe D’s attraction to puzzles has rubbed off on me.

But I’m looking now at actually getting back to Python training, and playing around with my Math skills to build confidence and refresh my memory. I do remember having griped about that last class, for a while. But if I worked with someone in-person who could train me (and understand where I’m having trouble), as versus essentially trying to learn this on my own through readings, videos, and the Internet, things might be different.

It might be good to look for other entry-level Information Technology jobs, as well; training in this would likely complement my Information Science knowledge, nicely. I might even be able to write training material which makes sense to a person who starts out in the Humanities (as versus a lot of what I’ve read).

I now have two jobs lined up, that I need to apply for…let’s set the timer for three weeks, and see what happens.
Periodic record #1: Stress

January 23rd, 2023

Just to clarify: this entry is casual in nature. I realize it has three different topics, and make no claims as to whether it is a good example of my editing or writing skill. 😜 I basically just don’t want to hold onto it any longer; it was meant to serve as a time and experience marker, and I’m into my second day on writing and editing it (more, if you consider the image work).

Lethargy

For some reason, even though both my time spent in action and my self-care has improved, I’ve had a difficult time motivating myself over the last several days. By, “time spent in action,” I mean time spent doing something other than being still. My sleep hygiene is improving — I’m having fewer long-term awakenings during the night, having more control over those I do have, and losing weight as a consequence (of both sleeping better, and not eating late at night).

I suppose a lot of work has gone into trying to recover my computer. The battery just failed of old age (it was puffy when we took it out). It’s a work-in-progress; I may have fixed it, but I’m not sure. I’ll have to power it down and back up (again), to know.

But that, and some tension around the household, have probably drained some of my energy via out-and-out stress.

Then there is the entire prospect of becoming part of the workforce again. I was able to recover a lot of information (job search sites) from the drive I had been using, but not before one of my browsers decided to scramble the order of my Bookmarks when I set them up to Sync. I don’t think there’s an “Undo” button to restore them, but I did (thankfully) have a backup. I’ve had to spend time, then, restoring and unscrambling the randomized Bookmarks (though at least their folders held), which also means that I’ve spent time editing them, which kept me up past midnight, within the last week.

Tech problems. I think it had to do with confusion over which machine’s copy of the Bookmarks file took precedence when setting up Sync. Instead of asking me, it just assumed it knew what I wanted, and destroyed my order (for a different order in which, I can’t see the logic). Because, of course, I don’t care which of my hundreds (I’m guessing, here) of files or folders come first in my Toolbar, right?

Ugh. Not to mention that I literally would not know if I lost content…

Graphic Arts: incremental learning

Anyhow…my last post was actually based on an image I had made, and had been playing around with on a couple of different image editors. At the endpoint of that draft, however, I saw that the image itself was extraneous to the content, so I didn’t post it. (I nearly didn’t post what I have, here.)

Detail of selection “halo”

Illustration example colored with selections in Photoshop

What I had been trying to do was take a .PNG file, isolate all of the linework (without greyscale halo), and copy it to a transparent layer — then export that transparent layer to a different program, for coloring. (Ideally, this would be the top layer in the file, so everything else would only show up behind it.) I have since learned that I can just change Blending Modes and color on top of the original image, fine — without dealing with minimizing the halo, or importing things from a separate program. This eliminates the issue with pixelization.

By, “halo,” I mean that it’s possible to sample all points of one color (in this case, black) from the image no matter where they are — but specify too wide a tolerance for this, and you’ll keep the smoothness of your lines, along with a (in my experience, opaque: maybe I can tweak this) greyscale artifact surrounding all of them. With too small a tolerance, your lines will show up pixelated once transferred. That may require re-drawing the image…and I’m not sure anyone actually wants to re-draw something they already drew out once, to their satisfaction.

Smudging over a hidden line, is different. I’m not sure if I’m able to restrict the layers sampled by the smudge tool…in which case, it would be good to outline areas of shadow or highlight with something lighter and less-visible, like mechanical pencil, or at least hard pencil, rather than using black fineliner.

Illustration example colored with Procreate

I have some choice words for the “Export” function where it comes to the mobile version of Photoshop. I didn’t realize my machine is technically a mobile device with limited capability, in comparison to a desktop or laptop computer. Apparently, to “Export” (say, to the Web) means to reduce the file size as much as possible, meaning a ton of detail is lost on file conversion. That’s not great, if you want to continue to work on your graphics without things getting pixelated. (There may be a way to work around this, which I’m simply too new to know of.)

On the other hand, now that I see what that “colored” (greyed-in) sketch looks like in a Web browser, I’m more willing to forgive the lapse in resolution. Sure, in 20 years we’ll look back on it and regret the stage of our technology in which .PNGs looked like .BMPs, but until then it should be fine, right? 😉

If you’re working for Web distribution (and only current-generation Web distribution), using “Export” is fine, as you’re already at the maximum most browsers can handle. If you’re making something for print — like, on paper — that’s another thing, entirely. Print files need a minimum of 300 dpi (dots per inch), for optimum reproduction; and they should be saved (and edited) with a resolution of at least 600 dpi, space allowing.

When it comes to the Web, one may be able to skate by on 72 ppi (points per inch; dpi and ppi are essentially the same thing, but one is on paper and the other, a screen), though I sometimes crank it up to 180, just in case I want to expand the image a bit in the browser.

There’s also the fact that Apple’s displays have a bit more sharpness than most PCs, which I had been adjusting for, without recalling why I was doing it.

I’ve noticed that if I want to add color to a transparent .PNG (which would help differentiate objects without the addition of texture), I have to either scan it in, in color (not greyscale) — even if the image only contains black-and-white data — or (I haven’t tried this yet) change the color space on the PC version of the editor while having that file open, before accessing it from any other device.

This, of course, means that if I’m working from a tablet and the color space is by default greyscale — I’m not sure I can do anything to alter that, from the tablet.

Further thinking on jobs (this is an ongoing theme)

I guess the final part of this, if I’m looking at what I originally intended to write here, has to do with the entire work/life balance, issue. That is, there is the question of exactly how much money I’d need in order to maintain the quality of life I have, now (where, for example, I even have the option of getting a machine specifically focused on writing and art, or of repairing a failing machine).

There are several different career paths I have in front of me — most of which, are interrelated. The others (visual arts and beadwork), can be hobbies. Of course, that only leaves Editing and Librarianship as practical, pure work options: things I wouldn’t do, if I weren’t getting paid to do them.

Well, actually; there is the entire thing about Illustration, as well. What I’m missing there, can be resolved, essentially just through practice and study — but much more so, practice. Building skill in Graphic Arts, is the major reason I got a tablet. The benefits of having a tablet for digital art are many; there is so much to get into on that topic, that it would best be addressed in another post.

Writing is something I’m going to do, regardless of whether or not I get paid for it; the benefits are too strong, and my comfort with the medium too high, not to work with it. Creative Writing, at least, dredges up a lot of psychological issues and makes them visible. I don’t necessarily want to deal with those issues full-time (it’s essentially my therapy right now), and neither can I necessarily process my trauma and heal, on a conveniently predetermined timetable. It also may be implicit, but I doubt writing Fiction will pay the bills.

Having seen a lot of job ads asking for help in Writing…makes the idea of living off of Writing (say, for a company), seem relatively depleted in terms of, “soul.” But yeah…I trained in Literature. And I don’t know if I want to explain that allusion.

Illustration also at least has the potential of being peaceful, by being engrossing. How that works out in an employment situation, I’m not sure; I would think deadlines would take away the relaxing quality of the work. This is why I’ve been looking at using my skills in a self-published Graphic-Novel-type form…probably hosted online. But I have no projects in the pipeline for that, right now…save the one I developed at the end of my Art AA (which I have no idea how to end on a positive note).

What I tend to write about and what I tend to draw about, aren’t necessarily the same. That might be a good thing. I won’t really be able to develop a story in Sequential Art without a lot of drawing…that much is clear.

One final note:

I seem to keep thinking that I can do what I want to do and not earn a lot of money, or I can integrate into society and get paid. I’m not going to comment on it now, but it’s something to notice for the future.
Scene and narration

January 17th, 2023

I’m thinking that close attention to scene and detail may be one of the things that pulled me out of rumination, in my last Creative Writing class. Ironically enough, I’m very good at it, when I allow myself to focus on it — I’ve been concerned about becoming too florid. Getting a good sense of place, sometimes requires immersion in that place…which can be hard to really grasp, unless you’ve had the assignment of sitting in a public place and observing everything going on around you.

I had the opportunity to do this over 20 years ago in the Bay Area Young Writer’s Project, hosted at UC Berkeley (known locally as “Cal”). Cal has a beautiful campus, and for those who grow up around here — at least, those who have a chance of getting in, surviving the curricula, and being able to pay off any student loans — being there can also be associated with the rewards of academic achievement and a bright future.

I have memories of sunlight shining though the California Live Oaks onto the courtyard; the dappled light falling on the squirrels as they begged for food, the bubbling of Strawberry Creek (which is probably roaring, or flooding, right about now), and some of the quirky buildings (such as Dwinelle Hall, which — if I’m remembering correctly — has one more floor on one side of the building, than the other. Apparently, there were two different architects who couldn’t work together).

Being somewhere around 17 years old at the time, I (and two of my old friends from eighth grade, one of whom was the first girl I ever crushed on [at the time, it was tragic]) were high schoolers that summer. Our teacher, for at least part of the time, was an older guy who taught at Lowell High School. If you don’t know, Lowell is a top-of-the-line high school in San Francisco (which I have just looked up and seen is actually public!), and this person’s teaching was what one would expect, from that.

As an exercise in observation, he said he was going to go outside the room, and when he came back in, something about him would have changed: we would have to guess, what. I was the only person who mentioned that he had cuffed his sleeves; his metallic watch, with highlights of gold, was showing.

I really did like that program, even though it did require observing on the UC Berkeley campus. To elaborate, Berkeley in general is not the safest area. I’ve been on foot out there (twice, both times with a blissfully unaware friend) with nowhere to escape to, while policemen with assault rifles searched the streets for someone on the run. There were other areas that I knew not to enter at night, due to poor lighting and high rates of assault and rape.

Berkeley’s high crime rate — and the availability of a specific Creative Writing program at San Francisco State University (from which Anne Rice graduated) — is why I chose SFSU over Cal. Of course, that was when one could take the BART and a connecting shuttle in to SFSU, and not have to worry about much of anything more than catching the flu or getting robbed, on the trains.

That also meant that SFSU was a commuter school, which — along with my not being able to drive — made it particularly difficult for me to get into the literary night life at places like City Lights bookstore, or build connections with other writers outside of classes.

I didn’t realize the difference in quality between the California State University and University of California systems, prior to having participated in each one. I spent a little under two years living on-campus at a different UC, before I decided to attend SFSU. I didn’t understand in what ways the UC system was priming us for the future after graduation (or attempting to), and how the CSU systems had some…less practical degrees. Degrees one may want to major in anyway. Creative Writing was one of these.

My fifth grade teacher held a goodbye session at the end of the year, during which she named one thing about each of us that she would remember. For me, she recalled that my descriptions in writing were relatively ornate — though, of course, she didn’t mention the word, “ornate.” I just had a tendency to zero in on details. In high school, I was able to get through AP English relatively easily (despite the fact that I still have dreams about not having read my requisite 7 novels over the Summer).

It was in reading The Vampire Lestat that I realized becoming a published author was possible. Anne Rice isn’t really high literature; many of her works blend supernatural horror and erotica; she noticeably repeats a lot of the same adverbs (“softly”), and the premises of her stories can seem a bit far-fetched (why does no one investigate all the corpses drained of blood?)…but Rice’s works are accessible. She can show a 16-year-old reader that fiction writing is possible, even if the content might be a bit mature for a 16-year-old!

For some reason, it’s precisely the details in a piece of writing, or in a drawing, that I end up…sometimes, not wanting to deal with. There are a lot of minutiae to keep track of — part of the “real world” of the story — and these minutiae may shift continually during the process of writing.

These details often enough constitute a great deal of what needs to be communicated. They aren’t the conclusions; they’re the evidence. Without these, you end up with a philosophical treatise, or an essay, or a work composed entirely of narration. With them, you’re dealing with scene and location; things that can be shown in, “images.” I put, “images,” in quotes because I’m not just talking about vision, but also things like atmosphere, scent, temperature, texture, taste, sound (excluding voiceover narration, for the sake of argument). The stuff of life, that is: not, commentary on it.

Giving the details leaves judgment up to the reader, at the same time as the evidence presented is chosen by the narrator (or author, depending on the reliability and influence of the narrator…which in turn might be related to the degree of the narrator’s characterization away from God’s Eye [what I call Third-Person Omniscient narrative perspective]).

It takes some effort on my part to pull myself out of recording my discursive mind’s deliberations, on paper (or screen); into describing what is around me (literally or imaginatively) at any one time. It’s interior versus exterior; enabling rumination, versus enabling grounding. There seems to be a necessary tension between the two poles, but somehow it seems this is not the total story. One can have story entirely told in image…but story told entirely in interior thought, seems more difficult to pull off.

I’ll want to hold onto this insight. I didn’t expect to get here, today.
Thinking aloud

January 13th, 2023
Every entry has to start somewhere. Considering everything I’m thinking of, not to write about, I shouldn’t be surprised that it’s difficult to begin. Not to mention the fact that I have a lot to do, that I’m just…right now, not doing.

Yesterday was a much-needed self-care day…but I couldn’t bring myself to clean out the vanity today, even though I know it needs it. This is especially now that I know how many papers have to be filed, which begs the question of whether I need all the old files: the ones I haven’t touched or reviewed, in years. This is what happens when information is important to you, but you neglect to file it: you clean out your room and end up with five piles of papers.

I did work on some beading today, though I can see that…well, my stress is showing. I’m making very tight work which isn’t easy to continue. Or at least, it wasn’t, until I realized I didn’t have to open up a gap between the beads in order to push a needle in, as versus push a bead horizontally over, in order to expose its piercing. I’m working on a Double Spiral bracelet…which is simple in almost every way, except its color scheme.

The color scheme, is something else: yellow ochres and spruce greens.

I’m temporarily burnt out on writing (or so I would think: looking at the progress of this post, indicates otherwise), but I haven’t been great about writing daily, in general, since about Christmas. Before then…well, let’s say that I’ve written about 20 pages of content, which are not blog posts; and more which are references or sketches lying behind those 20 pages, which are not even ready to be rough drafts.

These…have brought up a number of issues with me, predominantly psychological. Where the issues aren’t psychological is where they impact how I treat myself in my own physical reality.

Getting back to focusing on my own health seems to have begun after I (again) realized how long I was sitting in one place, in one position. This is compounded by the fact that I’ve gotten as heavy as I think I’ll ever want to get, and have begun intentionally raising my heart rate during the day: whether that’s through exercise or something like housework.

It’s not great to focus on reading and writing to the exclusion of everything else — worse still, to focus on writing to the exclusion of reading, for too long. When you’re trying to work on Fiction and all you read is Nonfiction (I’ve had a particular bent towards psychology, recently), that’s also an issue.

Of course, having time to read and write wouldn’t even be a possibility for me, except for the fact that other people are picking up the slack where it comes to — well, food, mostly. And just the basic costs of survival. It would make a great deal of sense, given the rest of this post, to use my literal “free time” (i.e. not spent searching for jobs, applying for jobs, searching for classes, taking classes, writing, or editing) in reading.

Right now I’m just trying not to let my creative momentum break down completely. If I stop writing entirely, it’s going to be very hard to get back into it; particularly because I’ve stopped, out of not wanting to circle the drain. Most of the times I’ve stopped writing, have been because of that.

A lot happened around the holidays that ended up being destabilizing. Things are still destabilized, really. I need to get on finding a new job, people are hiring…and my computer decided this time was as good as any, to die. I have the choices right now to develop my writing for submission and hopeful payment (or with the eventual goal of payment); to brush up on my Cataloging and Metadata skills; to work on my art skills; or to work on my Craft Jewelry. These all have varying real-world impacts, I’m sure you can imagine.

The clearest paths forward, where it comes to return-on-investment, are becoming a Cataloging or Metadata Librarian, or to become a Writer (the latter of which, would likely have to be combined with at least a part-time job). If I had more preparation, I’d feel more confident in seeking an outlet and job, in Editing — though I suppose, there’s no reason I can’t try for it, now. If I do what I thought of below, and do take courses in Editing at the same time as I am employed in Editing — that would be totally sweet.

Both writing and editing require real-time work, well — you know — reading, and writing.

Cataloging and Metadata require work…mostly, reading. But there are a couple of competencies (particularly in Programming and SQL) which I don’t…you know, don’t really, enjoy. Like I’ve probably said before…I’m not sure whether this is due to the content itself, or just having teachers who weren’t all that great at teaching, and authors who weren’t great at writing.

On top of that, it looks like the majority of the work involving Programming, has to be figured out, on-the-fly. I can’t see that not being stressful, especially lacking a background in Computer Science. In turn, that heavily implicates logic…and I don’t know to what degree my mind is led, by logic. Maybe ideally; perhaps, not realistically.

I also can’t really see us going back to a date prior to the utilization of computers for Information Organization.

The card catalog is probably not coming back, that is; and the changes implemented by technology in search and retrieval, may mean that the nature of the work is changing, and will continue to change. That means that the people who can most efficiently do the job will likely change, because the skill sets they would need proficiency at, would change.

In contrast, reading and writing isn’t anywhere near as difficult: for me, I should say. I do still have a chance at Metadata, possibly more of one at Cataloging. The question is simply whether I’d like it more than Editing.

I have much better feelings about my local Editing program, after having viewed it online (as versus as a printout). It is technical, which is in — would one call it “opposition” or “contrast”? — to my initial training in Creative Writing, which was very much, writing-as-craft…and very vibrant.

Before I looked back at the program site, I wrote that I was concerned it combined, “the mind-numbingly technical, with the unwanted process of having to socially interface with authors who may be protective of their work.” (Man, I can be scathing when I don’t have the information.)

Of course, very many people would be protective of their work — myself included, were I to submit that work to be published! And especially so, should the key argument of the work turn out to be false. That could be an eventuation of fact-checking, which could turn out to be my job. That doesn’t mean it would necessarily be a “bad” book; I think there’s a chance of saving something in that situation, still, so long as the author were honest. The major issue for me would be, how to communicate to the author that their thesis statement may be false.

That’s dealing with nonfiction — where false thesis statements are likely routine. Fiction is an entirely different beast. Expression is the major bent of the latter; and essentially, people can express what they want to, regardless of whether it is true or stands up to reality.

If I am willing to go through the two years of work to gain a professional certificate (and one additional for a professional internship), what do I do for employment, in the meantime? I still have to go through the job search; I still have to submit applications. I just won’t be able to work, full-time. That’s fine.

There’s also the possibility of working in Editing, prior to working through the Certificate. Or, instead of working through the Certificate.

Of course, this also presents the question of what I would do if I did get a full-time job as a Metadata or Cataloging Librarian, in an area which I was willing to move to. That might be sweet enough to give it a shot.

Even if a chance at a professional certificate is a temporary way out of this discomfort, I am in a bit of limbo, here. It means that I’m primarily looking for a short-term, part-time job (which at least is hard knowledge). This also assumes that I will be capable of working my way through the program with proficiency enough to come out of the other end, wholly capable of working as an Editor (and still even want to be an Editor).

The chance that I might not want to be an Editor at the end of the program, is something that I likely should take into consideration. It’s something that I didn’t wholly understand when I went through the Library Science curriculum. I didn’t know enough about my own identity to be able to see that maybe I did not want to do just any type of work. That maybe some types of work would not make me happy.

I already knew that some types of work would never be for me, but that was because of ingrained phobias. Which, again, is ironic, when I have an aversion to uncleanliness, and went to work in a Public Library. (Hey, some of our patrons complained. It isn’t just me.)

The above does infer, however, that it is a possibility that some types of work could be satisfying, for me.

I’m sure that the statement I just made would be antithetical to some people (some of whom, I’m related to). But there is a chance that I could find a job which would enhance my life, not simply enable me to survive. It doesn’t, that is, have to be, “a drudge.”

It seems I’ve come to some conclusions in this post:
1. Keep writing
2. Edit my own stuff (I know it needs to happen; don’t be surprised if my content changes, here)
3. Apply for Editing jobs
4. Consider trying for a Certificate in Editing
5. Apply for Cataloging jobs
6. Apply for Metadata jobs
7. Read (outside of Library and Information Science)!
8. Complete additional Cataloging/Metadata reading
Structure

January 7th, 2023

I’ve been having a bit of a problem with stability and self-care, for about the last three weeks — since I stopped the majority of my substantive offline writing. (I backed up everything, preparing for a massive overhaul, three weeks ago.) Of course, it has also been about a month since my last class ended — meaning the major thing I had to organize my life around, hasn’t been there as a support.

Then, there’s the decision I have to make: do I really want to go into Cataloging or Metadata Librarianship, still? I’ve sunk, what, thirteen years into this, now. As we were looking back on it, M said that I seemed to do fine in my last class, even though I didn’t think I did all that well. I ended up getting an A, even with the one late, flawed assignment. I just don’t feel that I learned…let’s say, “optimally.” But I still know a lot more than I would expect.

It’s been noticed that I have a tendency to jump from activity to activity, when things get difficult in one field — which prevents me from moving forward in any of my fields. I had noted that what Buddhists know as “monkey mind” (or the ability to leap from topic to topic, as the undisciplined mind often does), can break me out of perseveration on negative thoughts. In that way, it can help. But there is a pattern of shifting activities — frequently — which I hadn’t consciously noticed (as I had been writing through all of it).

I know that last time I swung out of a craft — stopping my beadwork to focus on my Art (sometime around November 10th)?…the pause was deliberate.

I had started seeing the beadwork as a financial dead end, and as a literal “hobby” that was drawing time, attention and energy away from building job skills. Particularly so, as I realized how dependent I was on bead manufacturers, who didn’t seem to be making any particular efforts to remain consistent in sizing between brands. That makes it difficult to write patterns that will consistently work with different batches of beads.

Standardization is something one learns about in Cataloging and Metadata…it’s important if you want other people to be able to reuse your data. The reuse of data cuts down on the global workload, significantly.

As well: when I stopped working on my own Fiction writing to focus on fortifying/rebuilding my physical and psychological health (during the final days of December), it was deliberate. That was more to prevent circling the drain/spiralling into depression, though. Now that I look at it, it has only been a week since I’ve last written Fiction. I did go back into the main project, but I wasn’t working on my old drafts.

I’m actually thinking of working out some Short Stories now, as versus a novel-length project. I’m not sure whether I’m going to seek traditional publishing or post them to the Web…though the Web is probably better for instant gratification and potentially wide distribution, if nothing else.

As regards how I feel about my fictive writing, at this point: M doesn’t understand how an activity can be “fun” and “stressful” at the same time. I don’t know her definition of, “fun,” but it probably involves more “lightheartedness” than I ever experience.

That doesn’t explain my falling off of the practice of daily free-writing: but sometimes I just don’t want to know what’s in my head. I also have issues with adhering to routine, and internal structure. Somewhat paradoxically, I have trouble doing things other than writing and reading, these days…which may be more of an obsession, than a routine. I wanted to go and beadweave today, but I wasn’t able to bring myself to “waste that time,” so I wasted it on repetitively checking various electronic devices, instead.

Well — maybe time spent in self-guided research, isn’t really wasted.

My pattern of switching output methods has been fairly constant. It goes back to my stopping Fiction writing upon graduating with my Creative Writing degree. I was too psychologically fragile to keep up my output (I suffered substantively while I was in the program, and am lucky I made it through without incident), and without the pressure of projects, grades, and deadlines, there was no reason for me to continue to try and deal with the issues it brought up.

At this point, I know that the writing is always going to be with me: it’s my primary method of mentally processing what happens in my life. But is it necessary to write a book — and then publish it? Would I not be satisfied with publishing to the Web, as versus hoping to be traditionally published (so I can gain an MFA, so I can teach Creative Writing at the University level)? Do people other than Literature and Creative Writing majors even read paper Literary Magazines?

What do I really want to do with the Writing? Do I want to become famous? Do I want to impact society in a way which helps? Do I want to help soothe people who are isolated because of who they are? Do I want to talk because I spent so many years in silence? (These questions have different answers.)

As well as being my primary method of understanding and coming to terms with my own emotional and psychic life, writing is my primary method of communicating with the outside world. It serves me both in communicating to myself and to others.

The biggest trip in this is realizing that Writing doesn’t seem to be as much of a subject, more than a method to enable expression. But what are we expressing? What am I expressing, and why am I expressing it? (Maybe this would make more sense if I were more socially engaged…)

Do we want to write about, or somehow simply illustrate by example, the “craft” of Writing itself? Or do we want to express content through the medium of writing, which content is separate from its method of delivery?

We can write a book about the disappearance of Panamanian golden frogs. We can also film a documentary about the disappearance of Panamanian golden frogs and publish it on Blu-Ray. Both of these can be in a Library at once. The golden frogs are the subject. The book or documentary, is the medium. The book about the disappearance of Panamanian golden frogs, is probably not going to focus too much on the language in which it is written. The effects of ecological change are the content: not English, not español.

Now-defunct, obvious question on focus: Am I about books (wherein I might go into Publishing?) Am I about Information dissemination regardless of format (Cataloging)? Am I about Information access (Reference)? Is the next step of Information Access going to be largely online (Digital Curation)?

Writing, in a way, appears like Librarianship: they both exist on a level above content. The topics are “meta” — and I’m not talking about Social Media. You can write about anything. You can produce materials about anything, and then put them in a library.

Library and Information Science is about locating and providing access to Information. But within many libraries (and likely nearly all Public ones), this service is independent of the actual information contained in the Library. There are materials on a panoply of topics, which is why the part of Library Science I’m into, exists at all. It is not topic-specific. It involves meta data: data describing data, which enables the identification, maintenance, and retrieval of that data (which in turn connects to information resources, unless I’m mistaken; “information,” exists one level higher than raw, “data,” and one level lower than, “knowledge,” which in turn is one level lower than “wisdom”).

Working in a Library equates (or should equate, in my view) to the organization, location, and provision of access to information. That’s the ideal, at least.

It might come off as masochistic, but I think I’m actually migrating back to Information Organization as something I can do. Something that I’ve been trained to do, and understand how to do, in a way that most people don’t — even if the material is hard enough to grasp that I don’t think I captured all of what was covered, last semester. I grasped enough of it that I can find my way around now, at least. And my education doesn’t have to stop.

Maybe it isn’t necessary to be perfect. I should know that I don’t have to be perfect at a job I don’t yet have, in order to seek that job.

I’ve been told recently that I have a tendency to teach; I hadn’t realized it, but I can see the evidence in favor of it. I guess that’s the benefit of having other people mirror back to you what they see in you? (When you know they have good intentions, at least…)

Yeah…maybe I’ll read in Metadata for Digital Collections (2nd ed.), and get back to some of these unread Library Science texts. I can also get back to my other training.

M wants me to focus on what I want to do for the rest of my life. Maybe the first exposure to the material is what is most difficult…
Vocations and avocations

December 31st, 2022
At times, I need to remind myself that there actually are things — worthwhile things — to do, other than write. I need to really understand, that focusing entirely on writing isn’t the healthiest way to live, even if it is the place to which I return again and again, by force of habit and ease of flow. There are things that can’t be communicated through language, despite the fact that so many different messages, can.

There is also a difference between writing for communication, and writing as an art form. Writing for communication, is something I can do as a paid vocation. But writing as an art, is one of those things which I’m wary of allowing others to impinge upon. It’s actually easy to differentiate between the two, for me — at least, at this point in time.

Over my experience of blogging; writing for classes; and doing my own creative work, outside of classes…the feeling is different. I’m going to try as best I can to keep business interests outside of my Creative Writing (by this I mean specifically, Fiction: I have not missed the fact that I have tagged this, “Creative Nonfiction”)…though I have seen myself trying to tackle the potentially all-pervasive concern about, “how to earn a living,” popping up within it.

Of course, honesty in that realm develops a counter-argument to the dominant narrative, which would likely be looked askance upon, by those who substantially and personally gain from capitalism. That doesn’t necessarily make it easy for said person to live in a capitalist society, where money equates to power and influence, and following one’s own creative vision, for the masses, is nowhere near as well-rewarded. Unfortunately, creative thinking about how to improve financial systems is not particularly encouraged in my part of the world…which does not look well upon what happens if or when free-market capitalism, fails.

And we should be aware of the fact that the potential solutions to faults in economic systems are neither necessarily socialism, nor communism. But those, plus free-market capitalism, are the only three systems it seems anyone considers where it comes to “viable” economic solutions. We have an entire globe’s worth of people, and Marx & Engels did not live all that long ago. We should be able to get through what’s going on economically — though I wonder to what extent government will cooperate, and to what extent personal freedoms will be preserved.

Right now…I’ve moved to the small “library” (essentially a quiet room with little else than books, a desk and chair, a small altar, light, and heat), where I used to do my homework. The original computer has since retired, and I am faced with a shelf-full of books on crafting: which symbolize the reason I began this post, at all. A bookcase to my right is filled with very many books that I have been in various stages of reading.

Last night, I realized just how many digital books I have access to. This is even without Public Library access, which has expired for two of my cards, and likely will soon, for the third. Do I want to go back to San Francisco to get a new card? All signs point to, “no.” Not, at least, before a multivariant COVID vaccine.

I’m lucky: my parents have been gainfully employed, which meant I did not want for much, as I grew up. I was able to go to University, even if I majored in something that doesn’t pay well. (No one told me this until after I had declared the major.) And even if my (technically, fourth) degree, is in something I’m not sure I want to do.

I really should work this out with my counselor: I have been reading a book on anxiety, and realize now that I have “globalized” the behavior of a certain small, irritating segment of the population, to equate to the entirety of the population. These are the people who will emotionally attack you if they don’t like the expression on your face, or the people who want special treatment because they’ve given something to you (or at least, tried to force it on you), or who think that they should be able to do anything they want to any Public Servant they choose, because they’re taxpayers. (Like I’m not?)

The hardest part of this, for me, is being seen as a heterosexual woman (and dealing with stereotypes about heterosexual women). I don’t consider myself heterosexual, or a woman. What I do consider myself, is something people who assume I’m a heterosexual woman, would in no way understand. But over the Pandemic, I’ve learned to be a bit looser with my gender presentation: to the point that it should, by now, be fairly obvious that I’m not after male approval.

I’ve considered hormones, but for someone with my genetic profile, I increase certain risks (particularly cardiovascular ones) if I start testosterone. Not to mention the fact that in no way, do I want to go through puberty again. That doesn’t even factor in my knowledge that taking testosterone will not, in and of itself, make me a man. I am not a trans* man — trans* men are, in practicality, men who originated as female — and I’m aware of this. I’ve been around long enough.

It’s not my body that’s the problem. It’s idiots who can’t imagine that I’m in no way interested in them (and in this life, never will be), that are the problem. The easy way out is to say that I’m lesbian, as that’s a word they know; but I’m not: I’m not even a woman, so it’s hard to call myself a woman-loving-woman. And it feels gross to even consider it. That’s nothing against lesbians. I’m just not a lesbian. It’s intellectually dishonest.

Outside of unwanted attention (which I suspect, but do not know, is sexually-based: the vast majority of it originates from men and boys. It could well be based in their own power issues instead), my issues with my apparent gender are few. Though now that I think of it, I can add being a potential target of misogyny, to the list.

But, you know, it’s kind of hard to know why the rando staring at you, is staring at you. What you know is that he has a problem; and that’s about it. If you’re brave, you can ask him if it’s a problem you can help him with. But it may not be one of those kinds of problems.

Most of the actual difficult labor in a Library setting, has to do with dealing with that small — one might say tiny — subset of difficult people (who everyone knows), who just keep popping up over and over again. I have some trauma over this, and maybe I shouldn’t have been working for the group I was working for (which didn’t take care of it). I don’t imagine that anyone in that system, saw it as an ideal environment (save maybe two or three exceptionally emotionally stable people I met over the course of a decade; none of them gave signs of being anything but “men who were comfortable with being men”) — but then, maybe no workplaces, are fully ideal.

The problem I see most apparently — besides the lack of respect accorded Library workers by some of the Public (most of the Public are kind, caring, open, and pretty much, great) — is that people tolerate these work environments with unresolved long-term toxicity issues, and then feel trapped. Then their unhappiness pervades their work. They just don’t want to be there, and it’s obvious.

I think people feel trapped, largely because Librarianship at least used to be one of the only acceptable professions with a living wage, pension, and benefits, for a single female-appearing person to have. That means you’re not necessarily there because you want to be there; that means you’re there because it’s socially acceptable for you to be there, and it’s according you a level of financial stability (without the drawback of constantly being questioned as to why you don’t have a man, and how you can possibly be capable in your line of work).

Some people tolerate the “sexy Librarian” stereotype, better than others — I don’t know how. (I broke up with the last person to call me that.) There are a lot of women who tolerate it better than me, which I have a hard time understanding, when they actually belong to the category that these people are targeting.

In my case, I can see how off-base it is, and how little about me these people know when they decide to try this game. I can see that even someone who was a heterosexual woman (just assuming for the sake of the argument that the person actually identifies as such) could understand that misogynistic tripe casually tossed in their direction is thrown at an image of “women” which they don’t match, and that dude (usually, it’s “dude”) doesn’t know them, but — really. There’s no reason for misogynistic tripe to pop up, at all.

I think it has come to at least M’s mind, that she was raised to become part of a heterosexual pairing and raise a family — and maybe never had reason to question it, before she had me (and actually got to know me; a benefit of the Pandemic).

We’ve had the conversation about Home Economics and gender-specific classes my parents had to take when they were young. In my case, the only gender-specific activity that I couldn’t take (aside from baseball), was wrestling: for obvious reasons. There was one female person I knew who did do it, but my parents wouldn’t let me. It’s just as well; I might have really hurt somebody.

I entered Weight Training when I got the chance, in Undergrad: this wasn’t gender-specific in High School, per se, but I didn’t want to be around the guys who claimed it as their territory. The Library was safer.

M has been heavily involved in crafts over the last few years, the latest of which has been sewing. I’m not bashing sewing: I would love to have the time (and freedom of mind) to sew. I’ve bought patterns and fabric; I’ve even devised my own quilt-block scheme.

But M’s life trajectory is not my life trajectory. At least for the foreseeable future, the only — positive — change I can see is becoming able to support myself in a way that makes me continue to want to live. Some way which maybe could even infuse joy into my life. Undoubtedly, this means going into a field which will take up most of my time and energy: and I don’t necessarily have the years left to make a misstep.

As I was reminded recently, my disability (and trauma) together, make me fairly…unmotivated, where it comes to having friends and networking. I had to learn to depend on myself, and entertain myself, as a child. I remember many more negatives than positives, from socializing. In turn, that makes the idea of marriage difficult — especially when I don’t want to bear or raise children, and when I don’t want to be in a straight relationship (with myself as the woman — I don’t know how I’d be as a husband or father, especially if I didn’t have to carry the child), at baseline.

When I was younger, it wasn’t even an option for me to marry someone who was legally female. Some of the States have protected the right to marry any single adult human one wishes, but I haven’t bet on it staying that way. Regardless, my lack of identifying as a woman, kind of locks me out of, “women’s space”: I’m not a woman (even though I may have been considered one in the 1970’s). So far as I can tell, I don’t think the community crossover is there. It’s not that easy to meet people who understand gender-nonbinary people, unless they themselves are nonbinary. (And then, sometimes even nonbinary people, don’t understand other nonbinary people.)

I just basically don’t want to use my uterus for anything other than maintaining bone strength; and I haven’t wanted anyone else to use my uterus without my permission. That’s to the point that I’ve considered a hysterectomy. (I haven’t done it, because of the possible unintended consequences.) But then, that gets into eugenics, which it seems is never far from the treatment of transgender people. There are options that get around the outcome of permanent sterilization (like egg-freezing): but what am I going to do with a kid? I can’t even care for myself, yet.

I do wonder just what percentage of people in the Crafts, are financially supported by someone else, as I currently am. I know the communities are largely majority-female. It has been a question with me, for years, as to how people who devote themselves to crafting, survive. What I have realized is that many of the things crafters make, really can’t be sold for their full value, because their full value is out of the financial reach of most people.

A quilt may only be made out of fabric, thread, and batting, but the hours that go into it — designing it, stitching it — even if the sewist were paid minimum wage, would be extravagant. And yet, I don’t think it would be out of the realm of possibility that most of these sewists go unpaid. It means that “women’s work” is near priceless, but unless the person who makes it is supported by someone else, having large amounts of time to do it may not be a realistic expectation.

Of course, that’s under the economic system we’re currently dealing with.

I’ve been looking at:
1. What I’m willing to do as a primary source of income, and
2. What I will do to keep my sanity as I accomplish the above
I have spent a relatively long period of my life, learning to work with beads, accumulating books on beadwork, working with metals, considering the possibility of becoming a small-scale Craft Jeweler (which led me to take not a trivial number of Business classes, which in the end discouraged me from the path), etc. Part of this had to do with trying to find any reason I could, to remain female; beadwork in particular had been presented to me as a women’s craft (at least, traditionally).

Early on — as a teen — I realized that if I wanted to do anything substantial with beads, it would help to know how to do more things than simply string them. So I learned how to off-loom beadweave; I learned wirework; I started to learn beaded micromacramé (I’m still on that one); I have books on bead embroidery, but have not attempted it, so far; I have books on kumihimo and beaded kumihimo; I also found a couple of books on knitting and crochet while incorporating beads…though I do wonder if I have the patience for that last one, or ever will have the time to devote to first learning how to accurately knit, and then add beads…

Most recently, I’ve realized the sheer amount of time beadwork requires, and the relatively inexpensive nature of its components (outside of gold [particularly: anything above gold-plate, gold-fill, or vermeil, is out of reach] and silver). Essentially, it does remind me of a craft like knitting or crochet: relatively inexpensive materials, a huge amount of time sunk, and a modicum of skill (and high amount of attention) used. (And yes, I do acknowledge that if you’re really into it, those materials do not have to be inexpensive. I’m talking about fundamentals.)

What I’m looking at these days, is using my reading comprehension to help edit written works. Things look promising, though I might get tripped up where it comes to the social component of trying to relay places where changes need to be made, to the author. I do realize that a lot of that may be handled by the Copy Editor assigned…the question is, whether I’ll ever actually be required to be that Copy Editor.

I didn’t take an internship when I was in Creative Writing, the first time around in University, so I don’t have a foot in the door. I also know that it isn’t easy to break into Publishing. But for someone who likes to read (and definitely responds) to written works — which I would say is likely my primary method of interacting with the human world — it could be ideal.

Yeah, I said it. Animals don’t have to deal with this.

I’ve begun to visualize my future as full of reading and writing. Reading would be for Editing, to enrich my own writing, to understand what makes good finished work, and to secure my own psychological stability. Writing would be — well — writing. Either writing for income, and/or writing for personal fulfillment, then hoping to traditionally publish the latter and make some modest passive income. I do realize that at a later time I could become a freelance editor, but right now I’m just hoping for experience. Though it is kind of scary to put that out into the universe.

I’ve been getting back into the craft (of Fiction) recently, and I’m glad I currently have a counselor to help me deal with what’s coming up. In the past, I would have stopped writing, just to stop the flow of disturbing thoughts. This time, I took a break of about two weeks to disengage and reset. I’m actually feeling much better about the project I’m working on, now.

Do you know how much it helps to realize that you don’t have to stay with your poorly-planned, messed-up first draft? That first draft that you edited so much, you didn’t think it was a first draft anymore? That first draft that opened up a psychic hellmouth that someone looked like they were about to rappel into?

And I’ve realized that I can work with the beads, and with my own Art practice, as a way to take a break from being immersed in language: but I don’t have to make money from it. In other words, my nonverbal artistic pursuits can be avocations to keep myself balanced while I write and edit. And I don’t have to commit to any one of them, now. That, itself, is quite a release!

Because I’ve come to this realization, I’m thinking of doing something different with my other site, SpectralBeads. I haven’t worked out what exactly I want to host on it, yet (though there should be some form of a portfolio). There is an awful lot of material up there which is just me trying to figure out how to get paid/be financially compensated for doing beadwork — when getting paid, shouldn’t be the point.

Once I realized that the venture wasn’t financially viable (for me) unless I exploited other people’s labor, or charged far beyond the material value of the jewelry components — neither of which I wanted to do — it was kind of an awakening.

It’s like trying to be financially compensated for knitting. It’s not that knitting isn’t a valuable skill; it’s that it takes so long to hand-knit anything, that one is by nature going to have to undercharge when selling a hand-knit garment, unless it’s made of silk or vicuña wool or something. Especially when competing with goods from overseas, where the cost of production is lower because the cost of living is lower. And especially when competing with machine-knit, or otherwise mass-produced, clothing.

There’s the possibility of selling PDFs of patterns, to offset the overhead required to make and distribute the pattern in the first place. The issue there, is legal. I’d have to go and look this up (again): whether selling access to a digital file requires a business license and DBA, and reporting one’s income for State and/or Federal taxes. But that’s doable.

I mean, it’s a hard, accomplishable goal. Hard goals are useful. At least I would know what I was working with.

The other issue is finding a stable, reliable, secure e-commerce site for distribution. That, right now, is kind of a no-brainer: do not host it, here. It’s temporarily convenient on my end; but WordPress is attacked all the time — and that’s not to mention the hosting fees! I’ve got to take seriously the security of other people’s personal information; which is another reason I decided to angle away from selling finished jewelry — at least, online. If I ever seriously got back into Painting — as in, producing copious amounts of finished work — I could probably seasonally sell both my artwork and my beadwork. That’s, if. It’s not happening, now.

Above all, I should not expect to make any significant money off of pattern PDFs — especially when SpectralBeads isn’t even a popular site, to begin with (and I have had long-running issues with the lack of ethics inherent in most social media, where I would otherwise participate). But it does look like what I have of a plan, at this stage, cobbles together various income streams from multiple jobs. I’ve read this is normal, for creative types…logistically, not ideal; but, normal.
Self-care

December 27th, 2022

I may shift back to writing a little more frequently on this blog. If nothing else, it keeps me in practice, and is at least a rudimentary attempt at a social life. Although M hasn’t read the book I’m working through on establishing a sustainable creative life, she understands the concept of the Daily Practice. This is where one essentially makes a routine of a short creative action done at the same time every day.

I consulted with her earlier about whether or not I should switch to a different Daily Practice, and got a negative response. Because it would be a large shift to move to something else — like reading or painting or drawing in the morning, instead of just writing for 15 minutes (and honestly, the thought of painting first thing after I wake up is exhausting — which I found out today), I’ve decided to try and just free-write for 15 minutes around 10 AM every day. (This is instead of writing for 15 or more minutes anytime during the day.) As I mentioned in my last post…there’s a difference between writing and free-writing. Free-writing isn’t the same thing as journaling, or blogging, or Creative Writing (at least, it doesn’t have to be).

I don’t have a good waking routine (other than getting up, weighing myself, and eating), although I have a partially established winding-down routine. I don’t always follow it, and sometimes I do a bit more. The point is, there at least is an ideal night routine. The night routine isn’t necessarily implemented well enough to eliminate all my sleep problems, however.

It’s actually difficult sometimes to get up at 10 AM (though I was up before then today, after waking first at 2 AM and feeling more like it was 6 AM, only to wake again, about an hour and a half before my alarm would have gone off). The disrupted sleep also relates to the weight factors I discuss below, as basically anything eaten after 10:30 PM is going to accumulate on the scale, the next day. And I know that if I stay up past 10:30 PM, I’m probably going to get hungry.

For that matter, if I’m on the computer like I am tonight, after 9 PM, I’m probably not going to get good deep sleep. But hey — I slept way too long, today. I know that’s not a good excuse, but I’m not ready to turn in, yet.

To be honest, a lot of the difficulty in waking at 10 AM could be related to morale. It’s hard to get up when it’s dark and cold and all you want to do is stay warm in bed.

What is not related to morale, is related to disruptions in my Circadian rhythm. In addition to Seasonal Affective issues (i.e. lack of sunlight in the daytime), I’ve been working on the computer at night, and I have been lacking physical exertion. For more or less the last three years, I haven’t been much of anywhere. Then when I suddenly had to intensively walk, I ended up getting bruised nail beds and paronychia — in straight language, an ingrown toenail — that I had to baby and treat, for weeks.

To give you an idea of how much not doing anything physical is messing with me, when I was putting on my shoes to get on the bike, my heart rate spiked. I hadn’t bent over in so long, that my body had to work to do it. It also felt like my blood pressure spiked, though I wasn’t about to get out the cuff to measure it. In any case, it wasn’t great.

So I put myself on the stationary bike for 20 minutes. I could have stayed for 30, but I was feeling some fatigue in one of my arches (even with the shoes), and decided not to overly tax myself. If I work for 20 minutes a day, seven days a week, that means I’ll be at 140 minutes of cardio per week. The goal is 150. I’m sure that some of those days, I’ll want to stay on, longer (like listening to music today actually got me to go faster, to see if I could keep up with the beat — and I realized I was going above 11 miles per hour, for the first time in I-don’t-know-how-long, on a moderate difficulty level).

That’s not to mention, working on the rest of my body — or, stretching, for that matter, which will also spike my heart rate. I’ve been wanting to do some core exercises, at the least; and we have some kind of hemispherical thing to balance on (called a “Bosu Ball”…which really seems as though it could be hazardous), as well as a Pilates ring. I’m pretty sure I can work something out — if, I care enough.

What I’ve realized just recently is that I can’t leave my health up to chance. When I was younger, I didn’t have to do anything to maintain my weight. As I’ve gotten older, I’ve begun steadily and slowly putting on weight, and I’m not sure whether it’s related to genetics plus age, medication, inactivity, or M’s baking (maybe all four). I’m just beginning to actually care about noticing the extra fat, with my jaw rounding out and my belly getting larger than I would like.

I do get resentful when I don’t eat enough, which can easily turn into anger eating and hostility towards the person who told me to starve myself. (In this case, it would be a teacher in a “healthy weight” class I took, who suggested 1200 calories as a good target for intake. When I do absolutely nothing except sleep and stay in one place, I burn at least 1600 calories. Cutting that by 1/4, at baseline, is excessive in my opinion.) The unnecessary rage is something nobody wants.

I just need to get in some aerobic and strengthening work to burn off the extra energy and strengthen my cardiovascular system and core, principally. From the core I can work outwards toward my arms and the smaller muscles which I know set me up for trouble if they’re neglected (specifically, the rotator cuffs, which get out of balance and start crying if you over-strengthen your arms and shoulders without paying attention to them).

Actually, now that I look at it, there’s no reason not to do arm circles, now. I can get a head start on this.

It’s then possible that I might not even need to wean myself entirely off of sugar. Though it’s apparent that when I don’t eat a lot of sugar in the first place (except for fruits and vegetables), I tend not to crave sugar. Especially when I exercise, for some reason — when, if I recall correctly, the craving shifts to proteins and fats (like sardines…grilled chicken breast is also pretty great, if it’s done right [grill pans are awesome; so are thermometers to temp the meat]) and clean, mineral-rich plants (e.g. escarole, radicchio, dandelion greens, kale, cabbage, chard).

The latter also have helped me avoid pica, which I used to deal with: specifically, ice-chewing and eating salt without anything else. Pica is the compulsion to eat non-food items; neither ice nor salt qualify as food. It can be troublesome, if you like your teeth to work without pain (and in any case, stay whole)…

It is weird how satisfying a little bit of ice cream or peanut butter, can be. For me, it helps put the brakes on late-night hunger. If I allowed myself to drink milk, I’m sure it would have the same effect as the ice cream; it has, before. The thing is, milk causes bloating for about a week after I drink it. Ice cream, at least, has been cooked — which makes it easier for my body to process (though really, the brand matters).

Then there’s the entire thing with lead and cadmium contaminants in chocolate…which has gotten me at least off of daily dark chocolate, for the past few days. I can watch and see how much this is going to help in the long run; but really, our favorite chocolates weren’t even tested in the Consumer Reports article that got signal-boosted a few days ago. What I find telling is that lead and/or cadmium were found in all of the dark chocolates tested. The largest difference was the degree of contamination.

And…there’s some information about this in my back files, here, most likely under the “occupational hazards” tag…you really do not want cadmium poisoning. In severe cases, it causes osteomalacia (softening of the bones) and osteoporosis (thinning and weakening of the bones). The only reason I know this is because there were some people in Japan (a long time ago) who were thoroughly poisoned by industrial waste that was being dumped into their water supply. The book in which I read this is not in front of me at the moment, but I can supply a citation in the future, if anyone’s interested.

This is a reason I have been hesitant to get back into using cadmium-based pigments in painting, and why I’m so happy that alternative paint formulations have been made, which completely replace the cadmium while mimicking its functionality.

I’m going to try and just post this without getting into a geek fest over pigments (and safer pigments, and newer pigments — I can’t personally vouch for them, in any case; I’m not a toxicologist or a chemist). I’ve been here long enough, tonight. 😁

But yes…one more thing to note for myself, at least: decaf green teas are an excellent substitute where it comes to satisfying that dark chocolate craving. I had some hot genmaicha the other day (roasted green tea with puffed rice), which reminded me just why I bought a gaiwan, and had been collecting ceramic teacups. The secret is not to overbrew it…
Confessional

December 25th, 2022

I think M is right: that I am in “survival mode” right now. I’m surviving, though what else I’m doing, is questionable. Speaking of that, though: I have been working through Creating a Life Worth Living, by Carol Lloyd.

What I haven’t been so great about is the, “Daily Action,” something small and consistent to do every day which I wouldn’t normally do, and which is in line with my creative goals. I had been doing a free-write every day, but somehow that turned from, “free-writing 15 minutes every day,” into, “writing at least 15 minutes every day,” which is obviously enough, different.

Free-writing is writing anything that comes to mind, and not stopping. It’s an exercise in not-editing. Writing, however, has a more targeted focus, depending on what I’m writing about. For at least several days…I’ve been doing targeted writing, whether it’s for this blog, or trying to process personal stuff that has come up because of engaging my own Fiction writing, or trying to re-vision the Fiction in order to constrain my “multitudes” (to reference Whitman) into believable portions.

I am, that is, having a difficult time separating my personal process writing, or problem-solving writing, from my other writing. And do I not write enough, as it is? Do I need to add more writing, to it? After all, even if I did go ahead with a job as some kind of Editor, and worked on my own personal writing during downtime (should I have any; I believe Editors are charged with doing their reading on their off-hours), I would need a nonlinear respite from all the language. This is the reason why I believe the Art will remain in my life for the foreseeable future. And possibly, the more I have to read, the more I will need to do Art.

Maybe I should change the Creative Action to, “draw (or paint) for 15 minutes every morning,” or something similar. This is especially as I seem to have hit a snag where it comes to my own emotional health, combined with writing out a reflection of my own internal state: which I didn’t realize was going to be a reflection of my own internal state. I have been wanting to get up at 10 AM, but keep falling back to sleep because I have no reason to stay up.

What about if I get up at 10 AM to draw, or paint, in the morning light? (D says to eat, and do a little exercise, first.)

In Chapter 7 of Creating a Life Worth Living, Lloyd writes: “…if you feel a lot of fear while you are thinking through a given plan, that may well be a sign that you have hit something exciting.” (p. 159) In that chapter, she asks the reader to think out three separate life paths, as well as consider what one wants out of life aside from career goals. I think this is the first time someone has asked me to think out what I want from life, since high school.

Now that I think of it, the lull in my production could relate to doing most of the work this book is throwing at me, and having decided to actually put energy into self-care. Projecting myself into possible futures (or, at least thinking about doing so) really isn’t the most stress-relieving activity, you know? Not to mention that yesterday I exercised for the first time in a week…and that can take up a lot of time and energy, especially if one needs to thoroughly bathe, afterward.

I just haven’t been taking care of myself very well, recently.

I’m also thinking that, “doing what I love,” is going to be a scary thing, at least initially; particularly because the only thing that falls into this category that I wrote out (for Chapter 6’s activity) is painting. Painting isn’t just putting paint on a canvas. It’s visually producing an image which is a window into one’s personal state. At least, that’s where I’m coming from. (I did order a book which is apparently on Art Theory which says a bunch of nothing about, “what Art is,” which, along with the literal book, What Art Is, is making me think that I shouldn’t pay attention to Art critics, either.)

Painting also, at least initially, is not a financially secure way to earn a living. It also would seem to require that I get out of the house to see and find things to paint — and possibly, renew my own Art training. (Then there is the question of how to get that Art out in front of people who both desire it, and have the money to buy it…which is not all that different from what I might have to do as a craftsperson selling jewelry IRL, now that I think of it. Maybe I could do both???)

There’s also the problem of what happens if I need to work into my old age (which, without a massive re-envisioning of Social Security, is likely), and end up losing my sight (which is possible, but not necessarily going to happen)…which, I suppose, would mean that I would just need to change my medium, or otherwise adapt.

Typing, I can do blind: which is a big reason I initially gravitated towards Writing. I could also do Ceramics (lovely and primarily tactile), or Music (auditory): two things I grew up with. The acoustic guitar is currently my instrument of choice, but I just got up the nerve to play it again, tonight. And that was because of the influence of one of my characters…who started out as a dream-being, and is currently a musician. Oddly enough, it fits…without my consciously having realized it.

The guitar (the real one) hasn’t gone that out of tune; I wonder if D has been secretly tuning it.

I had stopped practice due to posture issues plus, “you’re never going to be able to support yourself doing this,” issues — but it was mostly, posture. My body is aging, and maybe that was the beginning of, “no you cannot sit on the floor ever again.” (I took away the all-caps for the sensitively inclined.) If I’m working creatively primarily to keep myself balanced, however, it doesn’t really matter if I can “make money at it” or not. Sanity is worth more than money, after all.

I do keep having dreams (many dreams) about going to music stores…though getting a 3/4 (or 1/2) size guitar is likely going to have to wait until I get comfortable enough with the illness situation, to actually go in and play the guitars. Every guitar has a different voice, which depends on a lot of things: being the same brand, doesn’t mean all that much. The most obviously changeable part of that voice has to do with the strings, which I found out over 20 years ago, while picking sounds out of different guitars at Subway.

And yes, I am dreading the next time one of those strings breaks. Do I want to go back to Subway?

“Well, yes, actually. I just don’t want to get sick.”

That’s honest.

I also keep being attracted to mandolins, for some reason…

Though drawing and painting use different skills than the above, I do seem to remember seeing works by color-blind artists, as well as by painters who were losing their vision. It doesn’t necessarily have to end things. It’s just that I recognize that the ability to use all of one’s senses and physical capabilities as one wants to, is a privilege; not a guarantee. It probably wasn’t best to encounter that thinking for the first time, in Undergraduate training…

Of course, I’d love to get back into Art classes. The major issue — besides the obvious, of how to stay well when sickness is prevalent (if not for my own sake, then for my family’s) — is getting to classes. I still don’t drive, but that’s mostly because I’m concerned about road rage and accidents.

There is a lot going on in my life, which is incompletely done. Part of that is learning to take care of myself. I try and remember that I do have a disability that is thoroughgoing enough to have disrupted my early adult life — and that life has been disrupted enough that the disability itself, can’t be hidden (even if I am functioning enough now to be, more or less, in recovery).

Because I have the disability, I will basically be much better off if I maintain mental health care coverage, for the rest of my life: given that the mental health care system in this country remains compassionate and not punitive (to the tune of, “well, if you just acted like a normal person, you wouldn’t be so ill” — like that helps? “If you weren’t so ill, you wouldn’t be so ill”?). The issue with health insurance was more severe before the Affordable Care Act, when I was put onto a medication which had not yet had its patent expire, and which would have been out of my financial reach without health insurance. What was within my financial reach probably would have worked, but it would also have put me at increased risk of lifelong neural dysfunction.

So what I’m essentially doing now is cleaning up after all the years in which I didn’t know who I was, or what I was doing, or why (well, why is obvious: to make money so I would be able to afford healthcare, and so I wouldn’t become homeless, be forced to marry a person I didn’t desire for survival, or have to work in an environment in which I was disrespected).

There is a lot that I’m learning, from doing the activities in Creating a Life Worth Living…particularly where it comes to realizing how well (or poorly) I have thought out some of my options. On looking back across several job options I listed out for a recent exercise, I realize that having control over what I do create, is relatively high on my list of priorities.

The major reason I initially didn’t go into Graphic Design, after all, is that I didn’t want someone else making executive decisions over my work: especially when they didn’t know what they wanted, how to communicate it, or anything about Art or Design. This is also the reason I stopped pursuing the idea of making custom handcrafts: it’s just not worth it to try and people-please (especially when they’re people I don’t know, and especially when it comes to the image they want to project). Now that I think of it, this is also why I dropped a screenplay class featuring writing-by-committee; I didn’t want to deal with the social rules and hierarchy which made my ideas worthless when spoken from me, but gold when repeated by a white male classmate.

The only thing I wish is that they hired a better person to teach that class.

It seems that recently, doing one or two things for the day is the most I can bet on handling. I know I want to get back into my Buddhism reading, as it is probably going to help, over the long term. I also want to get back into reading on Art and art technique; especially as I can seriously play with abstractions (more easily) now, with the acrylic gouache.

The issue with the Buddhist interest (that is presently stopping me from doing that, and encouraging me to write here, instead): it brings into clarity my knowledge that, unless I die first, I’ll have to expect to outlive the people around me. It’s stupidly simple. If I die first, I can’t do much about that. But I need to be gaining skills and preparing to outlive the people around me, just in case it happens that I don’t die. Living is harder! For most of my life, I’ve not even really considered that I might survive, and that the thing to do is to prepare to survive. Not, to prepare to die.

That’s a pretty radical change of focus, and I can tell it hasn’t even fully taken hold, yet. The reason for me to write is to leave some mark on culture so that part of my experience is passed on — so that someone (hopefully, someone worthy) learns from it. I don’t wish to bear children, though I’m not sure how much of that is just my own gender stuff (I have no desire to be a mother — to children, or to a husband), and how much of it is sexuality stuff (the cause of which, I still don’t entirely understand).

So my relevant creations lie in my art and in my written work, not in raising one or more other individuals. In that sense, being a creative person is ingrained…and it lends more spiritual importance to my actually engaging with the work. I’m pretty sure that Lloyd would refer to this as part of my own “Mystic” creative type, popping up.

So yes, maybe it is relevant, to look back at my Buddhism texts. Even if I don’t want to be reminded of the temporary, and often painful, nature of life.

There are other things I want to do…particularly with my paints and brushes. And, beads. There is literally nothing stopping me. Nothing physical, at least…
Dukkha

December 19th, 2022

I’m reaching a point of conflict, here, where it comes to the story I’m working on — or was working on, before I took a break of a few days to reset. I’ve already written (EDIT: thought I had written) a lot of this out in my own log…but I thought I’d leave a note for myself here, as well (given that I tend to utilize this blog to remind myself of where I was at, mentally, at different points in time).

The reason I didn’t write that private log out, here? My public-facing writings tend to be self-edited. There are things going through my mind which I don’t necessarily want to share with the world, at this stage…and nor am I obligated to.

My own writings very much give me insight into what is actually going on in my mind: things I didn’t necessarily know, were there. (Or, as may be the case, still there.) Right now…I’m seeing the pain and bleakness of the story I’m working on (at least so, where it starts out). Because the story has been set up this way, it puts one of my characters at risk.

If I look at ways to resolve this issue…there are several, but none of them are totally, “clean,” except for the obvious and perhaps hardest one. It’s very clear that one of my characters needs to be in contact with others, in order to get through this period of their life. Selecting which others is going to be both their, and my, problem. I hadn’t worked out all of the backstory or my characters’ social networks before I started writing.

I’d say that I spent about a decade of my life, if not a decade and a half, interested in occultism (which is involved in most of the easy/emotionally tangled/sitcom reset, ways out). This was before I realized that a lot of what a person can absorb from books is rooted in culture, not reality; that the Western Mystery Tradition was, indeed, “Western,” thus culturally foreign to my sensibilities, even if we communicated in the same language. I could spend a lifetime studying this stuff and end up having wasted my life, if the goal was to find my own personal truth.

It’s the same thing as I recognized with Buddhism: one could spend lifetime(s) studying this, and still not know everything. (The question is, what do you want to know, and why?) We are also assuming that the field being studied contains useful information, not necessarily cultural constructions alone. Studying the entire canon and various schools about either Western occultism or Buddhism, one would end up knowing a lot about culture; and likely culturally-specific psychology. But culture does not necessarily ever reflect reality. Culture seems, in my view, to attempt to explain reality, though it doesn’t always find success in that, either.

In applying the knowledge contained in Buddhism to reality…well, it has a bit more obvious practical utility with fewer drawbacks than some other, “religions,” most prominently in the fields of mindfulness and meditation. I’ve noticed a theme of scholars being attracted to this thought — particularly people in Psychology and in Physics — but not being a Psychologist or Physicist, I have no especial insight into that.

The relative lack of drawbacks to Buddhism…it would be interesting to study why that occurs, but I think it’s related to being orthopraxic, not orthodoxic. “Orthopraxy” means there is such a thing as “correct conduct”; “orthodoxy” means there is such a thing as “correct belief” (at least as officially defined within the religion). Conforming to orthopraxy might mean not slaughtering animals to eat them. Conforming to orthodoxy might mean publicly espousing a person’s status as a literal deity.

Speaking to my knowledge alone: the “historical Buddha” declined to engage in commentary on metaphysics, meaning that we did not begin with any official position on what happens after death or in other potential worlds. It was seen as a distraction from the work of actually reducing or eliminating dukkha, which in turn was the point of early Buddhism.

This is, at least, if we’re looking at the big picture and not at specific sects like Pure Land Buddhism, whose adherents are said to wish to be reborn in a specific Heaven in which it is easy to attain nirvana…of course, the content of that, “Heaven,” in my view, is not necessarily going to be pleasant.

Whether there even was a “historical Buddha” named Siddhartha Gautama, has also come up — I don’t even know how long ago this started — though ultimately, it’s possibly irrelevant, if we’re looking at utility more than cosmology. Regardless of whether some guy named Siddhartha Gautama existed, the personage of Shakyamuni Buddha — who he is said to have become — does exist, fact-based or not. There is a thin line between the mythical or legendary, and valuable cultural heritage, here: we can’t expect people of all times and places, to stick to our norms of giving the literal facts when reporting on their reality.

One might be considered a virtuous Buddhist (live their lives according to “correct conduct”) without having to cleave to someone else’s thought. This also means that it’s possible to study or practice Buddhism without ever “believing in” what one might say are its tenets. (From personal experience, I’d say “belief in” tenets of Buddhism is a weak entry point; “retrospectively obvious statements on reality,” is closer to my own viewpoint, where it meshes. Of course, that does not apply to everything anyone falling under the label, “Buddhist,” has said.)

Granted that what we know about Buddhism in the English-speaking world is very much skewed, due to mistranslations and bias.

Mistranslations: such as the fact that there is no single exact word corresponding to the meaning of dukkha in English, so the First Noble Truth disclosed in many early texts, “Life is suffering,” is a lazy mistranslation which gives the wrong idea ab initio (“at the beginning”). Dukkha includes the English ideas of, “suffering,” and, “pain,” but also the ideas of, “unease,” and, “unsatisfactoriness.”

Essentially, the First Noble Truth just alerts us to the fact that life is going to include varying levels of discomfort, and that the inclusion of discomfort is a defining characteristic of samsara — or, everyday life. Nirvana is a liberation from samsara, but we aren’t told, really, what it is (other than “bliss,” and beyond the duality of life and death). I have my own ideas on this, but…you know, that’s me. And I’m not enlightened, yet.

Bias: such as the fact that the earliest popular transmissions of anything relating to Buddhism in English, were through the eyes of a missionary (Robert Spence Hardy) who was trying to convert people away from it in then-Ceylon. In short, he had a conflict of interest where it came to accurately representing the religion (if the people of Ceylon actually considered it a religion) to English-speakers who knew nothing about it, nor about the people — who were people (and not necessarily wrong people) — who practiced it.

So, for instance, now you have a situation where — in the U.S. — the most prevalent form of Buddhism is of the Pure Land variant, which is also one of the most strikingly faith-based variants. This matches the preexisting yearning for “faith” and desire to “believe in” something, which is widespread through mainstream U.S. culture: likely due to the fact that Christianity is the most widespread religion in the area, and heavily centers and values, “faith.” This is culture, again.

I’m not going to get into a discussion here of the transposition of elements of cast-off religions — particularly Christianity — into a participant’s adopted religion…though it’s a conversation to be had, and has been had, frequently, especially in the NeoPagan circuit. (Is NeoPaganism still a “thing”?)

And actually, now that I think about it, this is one of the reasons I was originally motivated to learn an East Asian language: I realized that, when I was studying Buddhism, I was learning about aspects of my own culture through the eyes of outsiders to my culture. Because I have a partially Japanese-American background, Japanese language seemed the most appropriate to study. And, yeah, maybe I should have gone through with it, as a major — even though it would likely have had me waking at 5:30 AM to get to class, for several semesters.

If I had done that, I actually might have had a shot — close to now — at becoming a Cataloging Librarian in an East Asian Library, specializing in Japanese Languages and Literatures. But I don’t have that skill set, as I didn’t go down that path. I majored in a branch of English instead, thinking that I would just confront more racism if I decided to major in a language which was spoken by people who had a pattern of treating others (including myself) poorly, for reasons of falling into stigmatized categories.

But hey — there are a lot of people in life who will treat anyone poorly, either for no reason, for stupid unthinking reasons…or, for rational but selfish (or, dare we say, “evil,”) reasons. And they speak all kinds of languages. It’s not like English teachers are, collectively speaking, the greatest at confronting their unconscious bias, either.

Anyhow — this thing with the story. Right now…I’m being led to make some decisions about the rules the fiction plays by. Although I don’t believe that what I’m dealing with right now really has to do with the bardo (at least as written in the Tibetan Book of the Dead), it is occupying that kind of space in my mind. There are ways to deal with it which…lead to less complexity, confusion, and suffering, and then there are ways which probably, shouldn’t be touched — even if they are possible (in fiction).

Going down any of the latter paths, is probably going to be dark and painful. I’ve had to consider whether I’ve wanted to go with it, and actually intentionally make the story dark and painful, or whether I’ve wanted to use my own creativity toward more constructive, light-based, harmony-based, ends. Especially, I’ve been concerned about the fact that Americans — just as a kind of overarching generalization — have a difficult time distinguishing fantasy from reality. I don’t want to give false hope that going down that path is possible — or even if possible, desirable.

My own major issue is that the finality of a character’s death is hitting me, and this is a character whom I’ve been dealing with for at least 25 years. But, I mean: even in the earliest versions of his character — the ones I drew out in comics, as a teenager — he was dead at the beginning.

The difference between now and then is that death didn’t seem final, then. At 14, I had no one in my life who had actually passed away. At this point, I’ve lived through deaths in the family. I realize now that he’s not coming back, unless we do some machinations which would probably be called “unnatural” in some sectors.

As a person who puts their trust in reality (including the unknown and humanly-unfathomable parts of reality) over myths which teach nothing about the real world (there are some — maybe many — which do), the idea of bringing someone back from the dead just out of the desire of the living, and without regard for the good of the dead person, makes me a bit leery.

It is, after all, one of the life lessons of aging, to learn how to understand death (and deal with the personal emotions it brings up). Running away from those emotions through “magic” is not productive, and essentially teaches nothing about how to deal with this in the real world.

In any case…I’m looking at getting back into my Buddhist texts as reference work for this story. I believe it will help me make my way through the story. It might also help, me.

Lethargy

Graphic Arts: incremental learning

Further thinking on jobs (this is an ongoing theme)

One final note: