Getting started: process or results?

 my biggest problem: i can never take my own advice. i know what to do. then i'm too lazy to actually do it! they say, "a journey of a thousand miles starts with one step." how true! yet that initial move inhibited by my fear of getting on the wrong path, of committing myself to an endeavor i will most certainly find dangerous or pointless, having wasted half a lifetime to reach an unsatisfying goal. (Carl Jung said, "we shouldn't underestimate the power of laziness.) 

how do i overcome my lethargy? i really have a bad memory for what works. i do know i have been inspired by copying, like an artist drawing old statues or famous paintings and making them her own. i have a friend who copies chinese ink paintings, the results beautiful. he doesn't really know what they are. Are they his own or merely false interpretations? ah, but what is important, every evening he retreats to his desk and becomes an ancient sage. 

if he were too concerned with results, he probably wouldn't do anything, yet the process is its own reward. a choreographer told me i liked process more than results, whereas she focused on the latter. of course, that's one reason i've never become famous. i have completed a lot of projects (fifty books of photos, letters, poems, plays, novels, on amazon). once done, i do find them satisfying. i enjoy, especially, reading my own poems. often they make me laugh. what could be better than that? 

unfortunately, i filled a five by ten foot storage space with at least fifty boxes of journals, notebooks, photographs, manuscripts, and asorted creations - and then i turned eighty. my god, what would i do with all this stuff! in the end, i've thrown out practically all of it, saving two boxes and sending them to my niece for family history. sure, i hope to be discovered. still, i feel now i'm a light-weight. not that i regret writing and filming so much. i have the bulk of results on external hard-drives. my choice of discards: what merely reflected process.

by that i mean diaries, sketches for plays, journals, etc., everything i felt reflected 'mere' preparation. this might have been of interest to a scholar, but every dying artist who hasn't made a name for himself needs an advocate, someone to preserve and promote the heritage. i have one friend doing this for her deceased artist-husband. it's taken her several years of concentrated work to catalogue the mountain of creations: drawings, watercolors, journals, writings. she's created a website. now comes finding an institution to house the rest.

recently, at a session devoted to how to keep your work alive once you are dead, an artist said, "recently four artists in town have died - and all their work is gone.'  this, of course, is a good reason to devote myself to creation for its own sake. gardening is the most popular hobby in the country and the best physical exercise! for good reason: you can eat the results. alas, avid gardeners usually produce too much, eager to give it away, if they can find takers. 

yes, ultimately, for most part, i have enjoyed the process. getting up at five in the morning for days on end, or struck by a certain call from the personal genie anytime whaling away on a collection of poems with a theme (i hardly ever wrote a solitary poem). the  book FLOW by  Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi    tells the secret. once i get going, there's no stopping me: not worries about fame or results, nothing related to my image in the world. i expected to be a famous playwright someday and didn't have the right personality. to hell with it!

when i get depressed, i know i'm too inhibited and lazy to take the first step. just doing something will usually change my mood. these days, having thrown out so much, it's difficult to make a move. if i could just draw one line, it would lead to a work of art. if i could put down a few words, it would lead to a poem. i know the right answer to the question: how do i get started? its really easy if i take delight in the dictionary, as i did in the old days. i need to put on a french chanson and soon i'm sent spinning off from france in the fifties into my own heaven.

for Linda

How do you become a master of change?

The end of fire season staring me in the face, how do I avoid panic? I look through quotations on change. None of them seem to help.

Life is never a material, a substance to be molded. If you want to know, life is the principle of self-renewal, it is constantly renewing and remaking and changing and transfiguring itself, it is infinitely beyond your or my obtuse theories about it. Boris Pasternak

Everything flows. Nothing stays the same. Heraclitus 

As true as these things are, i still find it hard to roll with the punches, even with changing habitats at least two hundred times in my life.

My family moved 32 times by the time I had left high school. This included California (many times), Montana, Washington, Indiana, Utah, Wyoming, and finally Germany. So, i should be used to it. alas, moving with my family not the same as being on my own. now, the lookout job accounts for 114 moves, back and forth every year. and my determination never to buy a house has kept me searching every winter.

my passion for theater took me to new york city several times. with the help of friends i found places to stay and classes to take. memories of europe pulled me off the lookout for two years. i lived in greece, germany, and england, pursuing art and literature. (and girlfriends - yes, they led me a merry chase). for some reason i never questioned my ability to cope.

i started using chico, california as my base in 1981, making good friends and taking university classes, plus taking millions of photographs: dance, theater, the community. at certain times i did travel: bali, india, adventures with my friend berta: five months in europe, time in central america, sri lanka, thailand. her death really deprived me of a good friend and a great travel companion. i did make a trip to japan with my friend marilyn and one last gasp in europe: amsterdam and paris.

911 put away any desires i had to travel for 16 years. finally, several years ago, the urge, even necessity for change, took me twice to australia and twice to mexico. it took me awhile to get into the rhythm of it. my first days in australia i felt afraid and depressed, not finding solace in youth hostels and museums. eventually i did get going and after a month i felt more confident and full of vivid and creative culture. i spoke the language and had some great conversations.

there's  the key: people.  my mother said once i played so much alone she never thought i'd have any friends, plesantly surprised when i did. despite so many years on the lookout, i've rarely felt lonely, only in the first days when i felt horny, and then i couldn't wait for the season to end. unfortunately, the covid scare has changed things. i can't have visitors in the lookout. for 20 years i spent my days off house-sitting in chico while a friend spent the summer at her house in france. these days she doesn't want to get on an airplane.

many countries won't allow americans into them. i can go back to mexico city, and am looking forward to it once the museums open. i have missed friends a lot, and i think that accounts for the depression coming and going all summer. alas, i need people and conversations. though i'm frequently seen as a loner, especially by fellow forest service employees. now i want to take a swing east, visiting friends and family in nashville, atlanta, south carolina, maryland, washington, dc, new york, and finally for some warm weather, florida. please wish me well!

Any virus calls the body into question

i resist at the facts about my body. they're too astounding. i lose all sense of control. 

      my veins are a 60,000miles long

      my blood travels 60,000 miles a day

      my blood travels through it three times minute

       my stomach lining replaced every seven days

       my eyes focus 100,000 times a day

all this goes on while i'm trying to cook dinner or solve a math problem. i have absolutely no awareness of what's happening. my body is on automatic pilot.

for someone like me who likes to be in control, this is a disaster! i feel terribly vulnerable, not just to illness but to fate. every move i make could disrupt the system. what if i accidently poison my blood?

     platelets created in my blood: 200 billion a day

i can't even grasp that. or 

     15 million blood cells destroyed every second

     2.5 million created every second

hmm, how is that disproportion solved?

some are more fun, like those of sleep. supposedly i think more in my sleep and am smarter. my body paralyzed while i'm in deep sleep. and i am to have erections every hour and a half during the night, even though i don't know it. what a shame, since a prostate operation destroyed that ability. it would be nice to be aware of them. if i were intelligent,  i would have more dreams. and my body is 98% replaced every year, which gives me hope of improvement.

unfortunately it seems to be working the other way. my brain 80% water and getting milkier, even though it's the most powerful computer, 3000 Ghz, even if it stops growing at 18. and the body can function without a brain, very evident in politics. and it's claimed it can have more ideas than atoms in the universe. if that is the case, no wonder i'm driven crazy by thinking and get very confused by all the contradictory things it invents. paradox and ambiguity seem to be my natural mode. 

given all this, with my skin shedding 600,000 particles an hour and it replacing itself every 27 days, my stomach acid able to dissolve razor blades, and my heart beating 100,000 times a day, holding myself together in the midst of the ordinary, not to mention a crisis, is no small task. yes, mindfulness is not all it's cracked up to be. as the chinese saying goes, you are blessed if you have a bad memory. 

     

The fine art of making memories

i recently read an interesting article on time and the pandemic. many people feel time slipping away from them without a trace. the article  ventured the thought: without memories, our lives empty. we create time when we create memories. tough to do locked in your house with an uniterrupted flow of magazines, television, bickering with your kids. oddly, memories created by change, anxiety through contact with other people, failures in the world. nothing risked, nothing gained. 

and this set me to thinking: if i don't keep making memories, i get obsessed by old ones, and that can feel like death, ie. life over, everything passed. how do i escape this, sitting in my tower, waiting for lightning. (last night it didn't reach me, all the thunder in the distance to the east). if i didn't get a fire, at least i got a magnificent rainbow. is that enough? i have been watching movies by two film-makers who stir my thoughts and emotions: woody allen and ingmar bergmann. 

i started with woody, not just for the laughs, but for the career. it gave me lots to think about. (do thoughts create memories? can they do it on their own? i doubt it.) i found myself moving and talking like his main character. i put a new voice in my head to drown out the negative voices often obsessing me. replacement may be one way of dislodging old memories. i become someone else. not all his movies worked this way. the early ones too much slapstick and shtick. long ago i though Bananas funny. now it seemed labored. and one i thought awful in the past, stardust memories i now think his best. 

as for bergmann, i'm again obsessed with his carrer. once i watched almost everything he made. now i have to pick and choose, avoiding the silly comedies or the really grim ones like hour of the wolf and shame, searching for the positive in smiles of a summer night and wild strawberries. when  i was very little, four years old, a member of my father's congregation owned the local movie theater. i could walk in and watch them anytime i wanted, which i did. i remember sitting in the aisle and watching the prince and the pauper. essentially, they created my identity and watching films now, i put myself back in time. 

are these new memories or merely visits to old ones? can i look back the next day and still feel i've experienced time? maybe not. last winter i spent two and a half months in mexico. during travel i don't get depressed, so many new scenes and people, museums and art, crowded together, i'm full of change and the unexpected. i don't sit around wishing i were somewhere else, which can be the knife in the heart of solitude. 

travel a bit like high school where my memories dominated by the anxieties of changing hormones, trying to fit in, embarrassment at school dances, fights before class, constant change and the unmanageable. memories most created when life out of my control. true, i ache to have everything under control. like most people i crave security. alas, the security of the zoo and prison not very satisfying. i only experience an accumulation of being through change.  

 

Will the lockdown re-elect Trump?

i have several theories about this, none of which make me happy. Yes, the polls right now put him way behind. alas, when people poled, they're not really thinking about their own self-interest, not even about how they ultimately feel. people polled react more to the news than facts and figures. if someone isn't obviously popular at the moment, they go with the mass, lemmings over the cliff. when it comes right down to it in november they think about something like TAXES. yes, people hate them. 

and what drives them up: government programs, those meant help minorities and the poor. those meant to preserve baby seals and the arctic from oil pipelines. who proposes these? the democrats, of course. look at the percentage of voters who don't believe in global warming. it's enormous, even though the potential for a world catastrophe much greater than for a measly virus. and as for covid 19, trump has taken a positive attitude from the beginning. he's the voice of HOPE, saying essentially americans have dealt with much worse, the depression or world war two. he appeals to americans sense of invincibility.

and the most vocal of governors, newsome of california and cuomo of new requiring the most draconian (extreme) measures, both of them democrats, californians and new yorkers not beloved by the rest of the country. this plays into the feeling democrats always want more laws, more restrictions on people's behavior, more money for everything under the son. a large part of the population doesn't give a damn about the disadvantaged or minorities. they can be persuaded once in awhile to join demonstrations, or even do some community service. unfortunately closing down churches doesn't help anybody's cause.

most of all, is the lockdown doing any good? with everybody wearing masks the cases going up in california and new york. even closing the beaches doesn't seem to be helping. and what is the logic of keeping grocery stores open while putting bookstores and museums off limits? those places the easiest for social distancing. and talk about damaging the cultural heritage of the nation! the visitors to those places the most vocal in the country, and their numbers the smallest. thousands of museums may have to remain closed, laying off workers right and left. this may very well drive many people not well-disposed to vote for trump. 

and i have to say, when biden said he would make everyone in the country wear masks, he drove a nail into his own coffin. i feel that alone may lose him the election. so, there are my glum thoughts. here's hoping none of it proves to be true. i'd rather save a few reindeer and keep the public lands cared for and unpolluted. 

Log from May 12, 2020

twice i have been put on a pedestal by younger friends and been knocked off, both times receiving a powerful dose of disappointment and sarcasm. it's been surprising and painful. i enjoyed their admiration, especially criticising  myself so much! a bit of praise makes up for a lot. unfortunately, in disappointing them i fall from grace myself. 

this must be why i've always hesitated to be a counselor or teacher. or even a politician. i'm not great at being called to task. my older friends know my faults and hopefully are more forgiving. Especially, they know their own failings and can put themselves in my shoes. also, i tend to joke a lot. and that is not always understood. 

i have now written over five hundred blogs showing what a fool i am. it should be no surprise to anyone. however, when i set up expectations and don't fulfill them it's a shock to someone not in on the open secret. those who value me too highly know too few facts, no matter how much i  throw them out there. somehow i have to shout from the housetops how imperfect i am. 

now, that's certainly a claim to fame and form of vanity. can i really be worse than Jack the Ripper, Alexander the Great, Attilla the Hun? i've never reached such heights. i merely forget an appointment, over-reach my ability to empathize, forget the clean the bathtub. these aren't minor pecadillos, i grant you, yet they don't seem to in the same class a serial killers!

true, i'm not always honest. i do pretend to be better than i am. i'm easily embarrassed when i'm found out, when i don't prepare a speech adequately, or miss finding a fire and have to make it look like i didn't. a counterfeit, that's what i often feel like. as a teenager my favorite song was The Great Pretender. i played it over and over again, driving my family crazy. children should never spend too much time with their  parents.

and speaking of parents, how i hated discovering mine had feet of clay. this seems to be a common occurrence in our society. i don't know why it takes so long, until puberty. this must be a shock to have their sweet child turn into a monster of sarcasm. maybe that's why i avoiding being a parent. i knew the day of reckoning would come. alas, and now it's come to me again. 

Log from May 23, 2020

SATURDAY, MAY 23, 2020

LOCKDOWN: how profoundly anti-American it is

i really don't think we thought this through ahead of time, reacting to an internet panic. yes, i see this as an internet virus more than a medical one. after all, what makes Americans?

        1. Freedom of movement
        2. Limited interference of government in public and private life
        3. The formation of small groups
        4. Eating out
        5. The denial of death
        6. A lack of fear
        7. Individual identity

take number 7. masks erase identity and make us all bandits. more than once i've been unable to recognize someone i know, even after talking.  masks also make communication difficult, voices muffled, hearing impeded. and after all the talk of covid being so transmitable (now CDC, months later, says it's very difficult to pick the virus up from surfaces), couldn't it infect the eyes? i feel like we've all been in a form of Islamic purdah. 

as for the denial of death, this is the very foundation of the American psyche. i always think the most dangerous thing i can do is climb in my car. 50,000 Americans die on the highways every year! the line down of the middle of the road is no protection, especially if the trucker coming your way falls asleep, or you do. we live with death on the road every day, yet how little this impinges on me if i answer my cell phone. people die out of sight, in hospitals, immediately shunted off to funeral homes.

and so i live most of the time with a lack of fear. foolish of me, i know. having been hit by a sedan in a crosswalk and thrown over the top of it, i no longer trust traffic signs to protect me. okay, that does contradict what i've said. i am afraid of cars making right turns at a stop signal, and i look both ways when crossing a one-way street. once in Berkeley i was hit by a bicyclist going the wrong way and landed on me back in the middle of a busy blvd. stupidly i stood up and walked away. 

eating out, forming small groups. i am actually very social. at least i like sitting in coffee shops and meeting friends. we hug, pat each other on the back, shake hands. we breath on each other as we converse, keeping the normal American distance, which is probably 2 feet. at 6 feet i might as well be alone. avoiding people doesn't come naturally and i really feel sorry for the kids learning to do so. and was this really necessary, since kids don't get covid 19, with a few exceptions?

the biggest anti-American attributes of the situation: freedom of movement and lack of government interference in private life. commanded to stay home (which i still believe to be illegal), i lost my right to freedom of movement. and forced to wear masks, not meet friends, or go to church, i feel the basic rights of American life taken from me. even a European country like Sweden, where there are more rules, did not take this route. at this point i feel like i've been bamboozled. 

Posted by Smokysun at 9:28 AM    

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