An Abundance Of E-mails

 During last week's small group meeting, my co-leader asked me if I had seen a particular video.  I remember it coming into my inbox, but confessed I had not reviewed it.  I went home later and looked and there it was, buried four days back - along with a week's worth of incoming e-mail.

Suddenly I was struck by a thought:  What if I opened none of my e-mail for a day?  How much what I get?  What is important?

---

Like a great many people, I have a multiplicity of e-mail addresses.

I of course have my work e-mail address, which has varied across every company since I first started in the biopharmaceutical-medical device industry (which started, of all places, in Lotus Notes).  The addresses have changed over the years - first name.last name, last name.first name, first name (for companies that are very small), last name.initial - but they are ultimately all short term, disappearing as soon as my time at the company has ended.

I have a second e-mail, the e-mail associated with this site. Other than appearing here, it is located almost nowhere else.  The incoming e-mails there are few and far between, appropriate for an address which is only for contacts.

Google insists that I have an e-mail associated with this blog as well that I never use.  I have another Google address as well, mostly because my family members want to share documents.  I never use this except for family related comments.

The last e-mail is my public address.

I have this one the longest, probably since the days when AOL started to not be a thing and I needed a back-up.  It is now one of the addresses that people look at and are surprised that it even works anymore - not quite "yahoo.com" in its antiquity, but almost as old.

---

For the experiment, I did not open or delete any e-mails for two 24 hour periods.  The tally was such:

Main E-mail Address:  Day 1:  32 e-mails, Day 2:  15 e-mails.  47 e-mails total.

Spam/Junk E-mails:  Day 1:  14 e-mails, Day 2:  9.  23 e-mails  total.

Most of the main inbox e-mails were "legitimate" - in the sense that they were things that I had signed up for once upon a time; there were only four that were truly "junk".  They were a mix: some SubStack notifications for SubStacks I occasionally read, a couple of notifications from the Community Garden,  a receipt for my taxes, and some e-mails from the good folks from Permies.com.

The rest?  Notifications that really are advertisements from sites that I have visited at one time or another and either purchased something from or signed up because I wanted the initial 10% discount, although I ended up not purchasing anything from them.  All reminding me that something was for sale now, and I needed only to click through to buy something else.

Of all of those e-mails, only a handful were really "needed".

---

I have started the process of unsubscribing.  Some sites make it easy; some sites make it much more difficult.  And some take time.  But I will continue to work through them as they continue to come in.   Given where I am in life, I scarcely need more e-mails reminding me that there are things out there that I "need" to buy.

Will I ever reach the plateau of no e-mails?  No, there will always be some I should have; my goal is less than 10 a day.  

Because of all things that take my time, checking my personal e-mails should not be one of them.

A Changing Work Environment

 I have been feeling rather low this week.

I wish I could point to a single event or thing - but I cannot.  There are some contributing factors of course:  a rather pronounced lack of restful sleep, an unexpected reorg that work that impacted me not at all (but one of my good coworker friends), a series of unexpected postal issues (note: Send nothing you need to get there in a specific period of time through the U.S. Postal service).

One item that may be impacting me more than I anticipate is the fact that my work site is effectively rolling into the next phase of operations, away from the sort of start-up feel to one of regular operations and "organizational efficiency and excellence". It happens everywhere that companies and sites are successful of course; what it has generally come to mean is a loss of the close sense of connectedness the site has and some level of fun and much more of a rather un-fun, unengaging work environment.

I value my senses of connectedness and fun highly, so this is not a welcome development.

---

For better or worse, I like a sense of "fun" at my work.

Work is, almost by its very nature, often not fun at all but rather a series of tasks to be completed.  And often the work and the tasks are serious - to be fair, the industry I work in (biopharmaceutical-medical devices) can literally be a life and death series of actions.  And there is a very distinctive time and point for seriousness.

That said, serious all the time can turn people into unhappy employees.

If I have a calling at my job - besides doing my job, of course - it is to make things as fun as I can.  That means lightening the mood wherever I can.  That means calling a joke on myself or playing the fool on myself (consciously) as I can. It means breaking out into song at random times (yes, I have done it).

About anything to bring a smile to someone's face, especially someone who needs it.

---

Will my equilibrium be restored?  Probably.  Yesterday was a better day than most of the week, and even though things will be different, there is still fun to be had.  It may require a little more creativity on my part (or a little more subtleness), but it will still be there.  After all, people may not remember what you said, but they will always remember how you made them feel.

So give them something to laugh at.

On Trash

 One of the biggest changes that I have noted about our transfer from home living to apartment living is trash.

In New Home, we had a dedicated trash bin and dedicated recycle bin.  With four to five people living there at the same time, we regularly almost filled both bins.  Now that we have relocated, things are quite different - in two ways.

The first way is simply in the amount of "trash" we generate. If I am here on my own, I possible generate one "full" kitchen bag of trash a week, if I combine changing the rabbit three times a week, collecting litter box waste every day, and the detritus of modern living (I go more often of course because of the waste, but it could be contained in a single bag).  If The Ravishing Mrs. TB is here, perhaps we generate 1.5 or maybe 2 bags.  Our recycle is much less as well, as cans and bottles are saved for a premium, leaving only cardboard and plastic to be walked to the dumpster.

Mind you, we do not pay less because we generate less.  That is a percentage fixed fee.

The other difference is simply in how people use the recycle and garbage dumpsters.

The garbage dumpsters should not surprise me so much, but it still does. People throw all kinds of things away, things that - having seen Cambodia and Vietnam - would have been reused and recycled in some ways. Furniture.  Bags of clothing.  Sometimes they make it in the dumpster, sometimes apparently "close enough" will do the trick.

Interestingly, some of those same items make their way into the recycling dumpsters as well.  Not just the cardboard and plastic I am used to, but furniture, bags of clothes, metal - literally almost anything.  Recycle, in some cases, seems to be another word for "The other garbage dumpster".

If nothing else, this experience has made me very conscious of the things that I am buying - and throwing away. I do not know that we can ever reach the point of zero trash, but likely we can make it less than it currently is.

Casting Long Shadows

 As part of the small group I am co-leading, one of the exercises we do is a specific fasting and prayer activity. We fast for a day, come together and listen to a Psalm and a song, then go off separately to pray for about 15 minutes or so.  This happens three times, after which there is a group prayer followed by a breaking of the fast - pizza, as it turned out.

The property we were on included an acre or so of grassy lawn, so I spent my last 15 minutes prayer session meandering through the grass.  It was later in the early evening and the sun was casting bright rays, but not enough to to offset the cold that seems to permeate even the Spring here.  I turned from looking towards the sun to looking away from it.

And found my shadow.

It was tall - I am terrible at estimating lengths, but easily twice my height - and it stood there amidst the waving grass and slightly wan light of the sun, stretching out far beyond what my reach would ever be.

A powerful image, coming as it did during prayer.

---

When I was growing up, I distinctly remember playing shadow tag on the playground. It is one of those games that I suspect may have been played for millennia.  If you played it, you likely remember rules even if it was a very many years ago: the person who is "It" chases the participants around, trying step on their shadow.

The thing this game teaches you - beyond your first introduction to the idea of "refereed calls" ("I touched you!" "You did not!"  "Did anyone see me touch him?") is the fact that our shadow is can be manipulated based on how we stand in the sun.  Turn one way, we can shrink it to little more than our height; turn another way, and it grows to a point that it cannot but be "tagged".

Running back and forth, swirling and dodging like sparrows, the shadows ebb and flow over the blacktop. We are perhaps too young then to realize that casting a shadow has more impact than just becoming a target in a tag game.

---

What struck me, as I stood there and watched my shadow - a tall, still presence that did not move while the grass under it did) was how casting a shadow was not just a physical image thing, but a thing that we do on all sorts of levels in the lives of others.

There can be other words for it - influence, training, even trauma - but there are people in our lives who have cast shadows - sometimes very long shadows - into our own lives.

The casting of a long shadow is not necessarily a bad thing; I think of my father TB The Elder, who cast a long shadow which worked both weal and woe in my own life. His shadow is well defined in the light, whereas my mother's is much less defined but none the less influential as well.

There are friends and family that have cast very long shadows into my own life, shadows that have outlived them or their presence in my current life.  And there are those whose shadows have scarcely exceeded their time in my life, to quickly disappear as life's turn makes their shadow shrink.

---

Casting a shadow is something that we cannot control at all.  At best, it is something that we can influence (if we think about it) by how we stand in the sun.  But the shadows we cast can be very long or very short.

Standing there, seeing my shadow tower over me, made ask the question what shadow I am casting into lives of others.  It can be far bigger than I intend or see; I hope that it is the sort of shadow that makes them glad for the shade and the shape rather than burdened by the blocking out of the sun and the resulting darkness.

A Sense Of Disquietude

 I have been feeling a sense of disquietude over the last week or so.

It is somewhat hard to really say why.  I cannot really point to one event, although there have been a lot of changes in the last two weeks: the death of my aunt, the death of a long-time volunteer at the Rabbit Shelter I volunteered at in New Home, the settling of The Ranch, the fact we now well into a month of interim-management with no sign that it is ending soon (this, at least, was expected), perhaps even a natal day that pushes the next world all that much closer.

But that is change.  And I have experienced change before without this unique sense of....something I cannot fully express.

I could say "The World" - but my understanding of the world at the moment is pretty dim at the moment.  Most of that is by conscious choice - those that I see focusing on the world seem incredibly unhappy and angry most of the time, no matter what their chosen side. Maybe I am reacting to their inherent rage, instinctively knowing that no matter what happens in the future, they will ultimately be no happier.

Perhaps there is some element of "the job" as well - my site is in a state of transition from one stage (early stage manufacturing) to another stage (regular manufacturing) and with that transition comes a change in the work environment as well.  I have been through this process more than once and know it well: a great deal of the spontaneity and "personal feel" of the work environment disappears, to be replaced by more regular business processes made to enable regular work.  It has to happen, but the spirit of a place always changes, usually for the worse.  Work is more a task and less about the personal aspect.

Maybe this will all pass.  I hope so:  Spring is coming strong and there is a lot that needs doing.  But I cannot shake this last little bit of Winter in my soul.

Nature Never Rushes

 

(Source)

I often find myself guilty of allowing the schedule of "modern life" to dictate the amount of time I feel I have to spend on things.

In point of fact I may  feel that I do more things by rushing, but I suspect I hardly do them better or well than if I took my time.

Everything in God's creation unfolds precisely as it needs to, in its own time.  It is too often I that feel like things are not moving "fast enough".

Uncomfortable States Of Mind

FOTB (Friend of This Blog) Becki, who posts at Field Lilies, posted a thought which made me sit back in my chair and think for a bit:

"Do you get into those uncomfortable states of mind - where the busy and the good needs of life of life slowly conflict with the pull of slowly creating things?  They feel like polar opposite values to me, and yet, they are both very much part of who I am."

It made me think because it quite described a conflict that seems to have arisen over the last few months:  I am both overly busy and yet not busy enough.

---

Looking at the face of things, this seems ridiculous to me.  After all, in some ways my life is simpler than it has been in years.  My family responsibilities are essentially minimal at this point.  I have a few weekly activities, but nothing like I had back in New Home.  My work is less than 10 minutes away by car. I have zero home owner responsibilities: no yard, no repairs, and cleaning the house now takes 30 minutes a week.

In theory, I should be bursting with time for projects and energy to do things.  Yet somehow, neither of these things is really true.

My days feel more rushed than ever.  By the time I get home, have dinner, maybe do one or two things that are on my "list", it is time for bed already.  I have had to concede that my very brief experiment in getting up earlier to do more neither helped me do more nor made me feel better - I was just a lot more tired throughout the day with even lower energy.

This math does not make sense.  I should have more time than I have had for years.  Yet I seem to have less than I ever did.

---

I do not know that there an answer to this problem, because I do not really have a working problem statement.  "Why do I have less personal time than ever?" might be the problem statement, but I am not sure that is it.  Because it does not just feel like a time thing.  It feels like a "weight of the world" thing.

Which makes sense, to a certain extent.  I have a lot more involvement with people at work in ways that I have managed to not have for years - much more direct coaching, much more being a shoulder to cry on, much more listening, much more trying to move 100 balls forward at the same time.  That can certainly drain you.   A lot of me after work now is me being quiet and listening to the silence, something that frustrates The Ravishing Mrs. TB to no end.

Added to that is the fact while I am not as busy as I was, I am also not seeing as many people in a social setting as I did.  Old Home friends are much more phone call conversations now, New Home friends online, and New Home 2.0 friends event specific or extensions of work.

---

It is tempting to say I just need down time - but what does down time look like? It is odd to me now how much I struggle with the idea of doing very little, or do something that while important to me is not "productive".  Part of that is work likely - we always need to be producing something - but part of that is that my thinking has somehow changed as well.

I do not fully understand this tension and, not understanding it, struggle to resolve it.

Rootless

 The ten week program I am co-leading is called Rooted.  It goes through a lot of what one might call "The Basics" of Christian living - the Nature of God, what we are called to as Christians, etc.  It also involves each person giving a testimony about how they came to where they are in their lives.

We did this in 2024 when I first did the program and so I have been going through my old notes, trying to get them into a form that is more of a narrative.  That has turned out to be a more challenging than I thought, both from going back and editing things ("Why did I include this anyway?") and some additional realizations.

The idea that was contained as a theme in my 2024 biography (I hesitate to call it a testimony) was that I was someone that had always sought to find an "identity", something that defined me in a word. I have written about most of these over the years:  hopeless romantic, called to ministry, business founder, called to ministry II,  living near family, writer, executive business leader.  Every time, "circumstances" served to crush that particular identity (it was clearly God).

Now, with removal of The Ranch from my life, there are essentially no identities left to me.

---

Reviewing this history, I was suddenly struck by the fact that most of my life after college has been a stripping away of wrong thoughts, wrong motives, and (apparently) wrong dreams.  That surprises me a little bit:  my time through college was about a third of my life, and I have now had the other two thirds to undo all the issues I had in the first third.  

A lot of that is sin, of course:  I came out of college with a lot of "squishy" morals that I had picked up, along with the general bad personality habits that I had acquired in the years leading up to it:  selfishness, self-centeredness, a certain wildness of character - plus of all of the "standard" sins.  And I was also burdened (if you will) by a lack of experience in life - not necessarily the "gritty" realism of the street (although I was missing that as well) but the reality that life is a lot less of what we want and a lot more of how we react to what we are presented with.  In some ways, it has taken years for me to accept a lot of things that, if I had accepted them earlier, would have caused me a lot less grief.

---

And then, of course, there are those "identities".

If I substitute "dreams" for "identities", the whole thing makes more sense.  I have had the dreams of how my life should have gone - the list is up there - and in every case, the dream has collapsed.  Most of them were unlikely in the first place or perhaps possible if I had made that my sole goal; the fact that I did not convinces me I did not want them that badly.  But even within the wanting, there was still a sense that in back of all of this was a series of green meadows and hills that were waiting for me someday.

Until someday never came.

---

It is not as if I am without anything right now:  I have a good job.  I am able to do those things that I find meaningful (Iai, harp, gardening, reading, writing this blog, loving on A The Cat and J The Rabbit).  I have a good marriage and children that are doing well in life (even if I do not hear from them as much anymore).  And I have a church which I can only feel I have been very clearly directed to.

But I still have no identity and no place to belong.

That is odd to me, because in my mind I have always had a place that I belonged.  Now I feel - as the title suggests - rootless, floating on a sea without land in sight.  This is so odd to me, such a strange feeling, that I can scarcely describe it in any meaningful way.  It is not fear, nor is it discomfort.  It is just a vast ocean of unknown, where I feel like I have no destination or even the ability to set a compass.

It is certainly no alarming - as FOTB (Friend Of This Blog) Bob commented earlier this week, although we do not understand our circumstances we know the One who is in control of our circumstances.  But it is the strangest feeling ever for someone who always sought to define himself by an identity and place.  

Now, it feels I have neither.

Rainy Evening

 The roar of Spring rain
outside my window echoes

more than my silence.

Alone with my thoughts,

I watch streams carry away

dreams with rainwater.

The evening cloud-light

slowly dies as rain sputters

over my silence.

Device Hoarding

 In an attempt to stay at least mildly "hip", I follow one or two Tube Of You "podcasters" (given the origin of the term podcast, it seems a little odd to me that a video is a podcast, but here we are) that deal in the sorts of Nerd Culture that I enjoy keeping a pulse on, even if I do not really participate:  Role Playing Games (now apparently "Tabletop Gaming"), video games, entertainment, the occasional tech discussion.  While it is mostly a reflection of current events in the space, it is often an interesting view of the social beliefs and systems that underlying those developments.  

It was during one of these discussions that I heard the term "Device Hoarder".

A Device Hoarder, it was mentioned, is someone that simply fails to upgrade their devices on a regular basis.  In the particular context of the discussion, it was with the recent price increases of game consoles to $1,000 or more and the not surprising fact that many gamers are choosing to either keep their old systems or are actively seeking out old systems.

I assumed it was a rather specific term in the industry but decided to do a bit of reading.  Turns out Device Hoarding is considered a real thing.

---

There are two versions of Device Hoarders.  The first is the Device Hoarding where individuals just keep purchasing new electronics but never get rid of (or "recycle", however that works) their old devices.  Per at least one article, 88% of Americans as of 2024 had devices worth up to $67.8 Billion stashed away (No note in the article if that was calculated on original value or current estimated value).

The second version is Device Hoarding where individuals and businesses do not upgrade their electronic devices on a frequent - say annual - basis.  There are those that have associated a loss of productivity with this failure to upgrade to take advantage of upgrades in technology, about 0.3% per annum. 

Thus, apparently, Device Hoarders have accomplished that most rare of events, creating multiple issues simply by not upgrading and not turning over those items that they upgraded.

---

Cleverly of course, this sort of "waste" is presented as having multiple impacts.:

- New technologies - Internet speed, better software - are held back, resulting in productivity losses.

- Unrecycled electronics are not returned to the market, where they can either be recycled or resold (to be noted, likely below the original purchase price or for free).

- Unrecycled electronics are not recycled, thus creating waste.

- Electronics manufacturers are denied the regular income of profits that comes from regular updates of electronics (e.g., Consumers are not consuming quickly enough).

---

Am I a Device Hoarder?  Yes, yes I am.

My computer is 12 years old at this point with a now-unavailable operating system (Windows 10) and a a plugged in keyboard as the computer keyboard has a row that does not work.  My cell phone (Computer In My Pocket) is two years (a miracle for me, although the camera is arguably a great benefit).  Our other in-home electronics - television, Roku device, CD/VCR player - are of various ages, but none of which are younger than 6 years.

I am, indeed, apparently part of the problem.

And yet...

And yet, my lack of new technology has not hindered me.  My computer is really only used for the InterWeb and for personal work, mainly word processing and spreadsheets (and the very occasional game).  My phone gets more use as a camera or communication device via text than it ever does as a phone.  Our television/DVD and VCR/Roku player gets a handful of hours of use a week.  The "loss" of productivity is unnoticeable to me - if I can no longer use a function or get a thing, I simply move on with an alternate.

Plus, of course, given the prices of everything, the idea of regularly repurchasing electronics (or really, anything) just because it is "out of date" is ridiculous.  For example, even figuring low on the computer side, I save between $600 and $1,000 every year I do not upgrade.  

I have enough.  I do not need more.

---

Interestingly, the articles I read never suggested any of the benefits of Device Hoarding.  The cynical side of me finds this to be a terribly one-sided view of the affair.

But perhaps understandable.  Often times if there is not a crisis, it is quite acceptable to create one.

Anatomy Of A Sleep Study

 Over the past 4-5 years, my sleep pattern has become something this side of awful.  I have no problem falling asleep thankfully, having trained myself that caffeine after 0900 and more than a single serving of alcohol is enough to destroy my sleep for the night.  What is not so great is the fact that I inevitably wake up after 4 to 5 hours of sleep and, if I do not manage to fall asleep in the following minute or so, am essentially up for 2 hours, finally drifting in and out until my alarm goes off at 0500.

I did an "at home" sleep study in December (oxygen monitor for the finger that bit like a moray eel and a heart electrode), but it was "inconclusive".  At best, it noted I had less than five "events" per hour, which puts me outside the need for intervention like a CPAP.  However, the home tests are not considered best practice (they only catch the major cases) and so I was scheduled for an in-hospital sleep study.

The process itself is an adventure:  a call in January got me an appointment at the end of March. Once or twice I received a call about an opening that day, hardly the sort of thing I can rearrange my schedule to meet.  And so, the days counted down until the scheduled date.

---

My initial arrival at the hospital was fraught with annoyance:  I parked in front of what I thought was the right building, then second guessed myself and moved to the next parking structure (both thankfully empty, it being Sunday and all).  My second guess turned out to be the wrong one, and so I dutifully trudged back up to the correct entrance - only to find that entrance was closed for evening.  So, back to the original entrance I walked.  Apparently I have the ability to see into the future, although it manifests itself in odd ways.

It is weird being in a hospital in off hours. The kind nurse at the desk directed me down a long hallway devoid of people at the relatively early hour of 1930, my footsteps sounding hollow in the long linoleum hallway.  A right turn past the in-hospital Starbucks (closed at night), one mis-guess at the correct floor on the elevators, and I was at the Sleep Center:  a small waiting room of non-descript beige, apparently the favourite colour of this hospital designer.

With five minutes of my arrival, I was assigned to a room (3) and a nurse ("J"), a pleasant young man likely in his 30's.  We went through a short questionnaire, he asked me to change into my pajamas, and then he would "wire me up".

The room itself - another study in beige - was decent and clean; I have certainly slept in hotel rooms that were less pleasant.  The bed as I sat on it was firm enough of a mattress that it would not be a problem, the sheets and thin bedcover the ubiquitous beige.  A closet for items, a sink for washing, and a door to a large-ish bathroom (also in beige) with a toilet and shower completed my abode for the night.

I changed into my pajamas and, as requested, ran two leads with electrodes down each of my pants legs.  In a few moments J was back, and we began the wiring in process.

This was my first experience at having this kind of monitoring and I found it fascinating.  Gel and attachments secured all of the electrodes to my legs (for restless leg monitoring).  Two "belts" around my torso for breathing.  Then, my head was measured and a series of electrodes attached on my face, the back of my ears, my neck, and on and about my head.  By the end, I appeared as Frankenstein's monster, all of my electrodes wired into a small box (seen above) that I could carry around with me.  The final wiring, J assured me, would take place when I was ready to go to sleep.

The last hour before sleep was spent reading (Ecclesiastical History Of The English People by Bede), journaling, and fielding a phone call from Uisdean Ruadh about a plumbing issue (13 more days as a landlord, I mutter to myself).  At 2050, J appeared for the final attachments, an oxygen monitor for the finger (a reasonable grasp, unlike the moray eel I had in December) and throat monitor for sound.  He "plugged me in", and I was ready to start.

---

The actual starting process itself is interesting.  It is programmed, as it probably must be so that they have a "start" and an "end".

The room itself is recorded with video and audio, including an infrared camera (sadly, one does not get a copy of the recording).  Lying in the dark, you go through a series of motions:  eyes open without blinking, eyes shut, eyes moving up and down three times, eyes moving left and right three times, the moving of each foot, breathing through the nose and then the mouth, taking a deep breach and moving your abdomen in and out quickly.  With that - after a last minute band change around my torso to replace a malfunctioning band - I was ready to start.

---

As to the sleep, it was...well, normal.  Likely 4-5 hours, then awake, then in and out until around 0400 or so.  My rule of thumb at home is that I stay in bed until my rising time to combat the encroachment of anything like Sundowner's syndrome - but there was the sense I needed to use the bathroom.  Not usually a problem, except in this case I would have to have J come in and unplug me.  I waited until around 0430, then called it.  

He had to check to see if he had enough data.  As he did, he had me go through the same set of exercises to end the session and them came in to strip me of my wires, which took considerably less time than the assembly of them.

As he pulled them off, we had a brief chat - obviously as a nurse, he cannot make a diagnosis (and having had friends that were radiologists and hearing their stories about seeing X-rays with clear indications of cancer but being unable to tell the patients that, I respect that), but he did have some feedback: Yes, I am a confirmed back sleeper.  No, I did not initially seem to have the sorts of events that might require a CPAP.  

We briefly discussed the results and when they would available and he left me with a form to fill out.  Within 10 minutes I was changed and out the door.

The hospital, if anything, was even more deserted than when I arrived.  As I passed the Starbucks, someone was already there, getting ready for the morning at hand.

---

Walking out of the hospital with my now-apparently genius location of my car, I looked up and saw the full moon, softly faded like a mellow cheese in the morning clouds, looking all the world like a Autumn Moon instead of the pre-Spring moon that I was anticipating.  I stood there for a moment, watching it and regretting the fact that for all of the miracles of the modern Computer In My Pocket, I still cannot take real pictures of the moon as I would like.

Sighing, I headed back towards the car.  A The Cat and J The Rabbit were all waiting at home patiently for me to arrive, and there was a coffee and a shower with my name on it.

Silent Saturday 2026: Pictures From A Japanese Garden

 On Silent Saturday, it seems enough to post pictures from the local Japanese garden.

Infatuation

 Earlier this week I was having a conversation with a friend about a move they were planning.  They mentioned that they had been looking at one particular location in particular, one that they were familiar with and liked the layoff.  "I am infatuated with them, infatuated to the point that I do so many drive-bys that they may think I am casing the place" was the comment.  We both laughed a bit and carried on with the conversation as friends do.

But after I had said my goodbyes, something nagged at my mind, something that that seemed off for 24 hours until it resolved itself.

It was the word "infatuated".

---

Infatuate (ĭn-făch′oo͞-āt″):  To make foolish; cause to lose sound judgement; to inspire with foolish or shallow love or affection.

Infatuated (ĭn-făch′oo͞-āt″id):  Lacking sound judgement; foolish, completely carried away by foolish or shallow love or affection.

Infatuation (ĭn-făchǝ-’wa-shǝn):  An infatuation or being infatuated.

From:  Latin infatuatus, to make a fool of (in, intensive + fatuus, foolish)

Webster's New World Dictionary. New World Dictionaries:  New York, 1984.

---

I suspect most or all of us are familiar with the concept of infatuation. In our culture - at least at one time - it was associated with the lightness of young romance; it is a staple of the Hopeless Romantic (of which I was one, and in some ways may still be).

In reading the definition - which I cannot remember fully reading before - the elements of foolishness or shallow love or affection fall right in line with the associations I have with it.  It easy enough to understand, of course:  at some point someone notices a person with something more than a little interest.  In that moment, interest can lead to sort of fantasy (no, not the kind the world usually associates with that word).  The infatuated person hangs on every word and gesture of the object of attention.  They visualize what it would be like if there was a deeper relationship.  In an infatuated state of course, this is not difficult:  we know virtually nothing about the other and so only tend to think the best and happiest sorts of thoughts. In a way, they become marionettes on a stage of our making.

It is not just confined to people:  one can become infatuated with a belief system or an interest; in fact, a great many hobbies probably start with some level of imagining "What would be like if I did X"?  The answer is undoubtedly the same as the mythical relationship in our mind:  a sort of flawless execution and expertise that makes everything we touch work without issue.  Our swordsmanship is always flawless, our cheeses are always round and perfectly aged, our sewing without blemish.

---

But  infatuation cannot continue.  

At some point, reality starts to break in.  The imaginary relationship becomes real, and suddenly we discover that the person we visualized in our mind is not the same person as the person we now find ourselves with: they have faults and flaws and short tempers and bad days just as we do.  The interest never develops the way we think because getting good at anything takes time:  we spend our swordsmanship doing thousands of cuts, our cheese falls apart, our sewing has become a series of stitching followed by ripping stiches out.

It is at this point that infatuation can take one of two paths.

---

The first path - more often than not, the one taken - is that the thing is simply dropped.  "That relationship was never for me" we sigh as we move on, our eyes already on the horizon for the Next Greatest Love.  "I simply cannot make any progress" we sniff as we look at the collection of items we purchased to support our new interest, which suddenly has no more use to us than something to sell at the next garage sale.

If caught early enough of course, the harm is minimal.  "Summer Romances" are called that for a reason, short term relationships that never were going to blossom anyway because someone was leaving at the end of Summer.  "Passing Interests" are the easy way we move on from our current interests to the New Best Thing that will change our life.   

But sometimes this is realized too late:  the relationship that now has a marriage and children and possessions attached, the interest or hobby what we invested so much of our resources in only to find out it was not for us.  As the definition says, we have lost sound judgement and been inspired by shallow affection or love.  Sadly, everyone around us has to pay the price.

---

The second path is the path of the death of infatuation.

In order to move to anything else, the infatuation itself has to die - not "die" in the sense of the death of the relationship or interest, but die in the mythical expectations we have of the thing.  If one has ever been in a serious committed relationship or truly followed a hobby or interest, one knows that there comes a point at which we have to make a choice to continue on even though the relationship or the thing is not what we thought it would be at all.  We accept the reality of the situation - the person that is not our magical ideal, the interest that makes us study harder than we thought, the hobby that calls for mastery and not just passing interest - and we invest in it.  It may not be the sappy sweet romance that we originally thought or the effortless mastery that we dreamed of, but we find in them a sort of reality - a "realness" that make the dreams that we had seem made of cotton candy and clouds.

We have learned better than that.  We have the experiences and scars to prove it.

---

It occurred, to me, as I listened to my friend rhapsodically describe the place he desired, that this is an issue that much of modern Western society struggles with.

We have our dreams - dreams of relationship, dreams of home, dreams of interests, dreams of careers - that we become infatuated with.  We dream of these things based on the thinnest of veneers - the glance of a person at a meeting, a passing conversation about a job, a video game that makes swordsmanship seem effortless - and suddenly our mind and life is fixed on these things.  We - to use the definition - lose sound judgement and engage in shallow affection or love.  And at the first sign of reality or difficult or the fact that our "dream" is not what we imagine, we pass on to the next thing without stopping.  

We have become a people that seek a world that exists only in the barest of our imaginations, because we do not try or want to do more.  We make no plans to succeed in any of these things, because we turn from those paths long before we would need them.  We avoid the messy reality of people and interests and careers and hobbies, choosing to look down the road at the Next True Love or Next Big Thing.

It is only when we choose to ground ourselves, when we throw the anchor down and the current tears against our boat, that we begin to find the underlying thing - the true True Love or real Big Things - that we were seeking in the first place.

Two Years Of New Home 2.0

Almost by stealth this week, the two year anniversary of my official "being" in New Home 2.0 came and went.

It slipped by without fanfare or notice; the only specific reminder I had was a "memory" post in a social media platform that reminded me that we had gone to the coast the day before.

In one way it is very hard to believe that it has been two years since my relocation.  For example, it feels like I have been at my job for years, not just the two years that it has actually been.  The seasons are starting to have a feel to them that is not "Good Lord, what is the weather?", followed by scurrying around to prepare.    And the apartment feels as much as home as the house in New Home was, probably helped by the fact that A The Cat and J The Rabbit are here too.

In terms of me....there would probably be some value in reviewing my journals over the last two years.  There are changes afoot, some changes that I can definitely see and some that buried that do not reveal themselves to me on first glance.  And some, I suspect, that are still working themselves out.

Moments like these make me reflect on the impermanence of life.  Certainly if you had asked me four years ago if I thought this would be where I was, I would have laughed at you.  Sure, moving back in the direction of The Ranch and closer to my parents would have been ideal, but there was no way in my then-current circumstances that this was going to happen.  There was no job and I was far too entrenched in my life there to think that I could move anywhere.

Then, of course, life happened because God happens.

It has been a good two years overall. I have found friends.  I have continued to train.  I continue to slowly find my place and my people here. 

And to top that all off, we are at the beginning of Spring.  The trees are blooming.

Life is indeed good.

Themes Of Mystery

 

(Source)

I cannot escape the fact that themes keep piling themselves into my life like advertisements on a radio that simply continue to repeat until you feel like you have to buy the product to make them stop.

I do not know how "messaging" (if that is what we shall call it) works in other's lives.  How does one know when a change needs to be made?  How does one sense that life is asking one to change course or direction, be it of a lifestyle or living or simply a pattern of thought?

Mine, apparently, comes through the written word.

It has been a slow process, perhaps two years or more (corresponding, as it turns out, to my relocation to New Home 2.0).  It has largely involved books, but quotes have participated also, as well as conversations with individuals.

It is that moment where the ground is shifting under your feet and you have no other option except to ride it like a surfer on a wave.

---

I comprehend that I am speaking a bit riddles.  Mostly that is due to the fact that I am trying to understand the themes and the questions themselves.  What they are - or at least my best guess at them - has migrated from notes to journaling to a Word document (so I can see everything in black and white).  Even with all of that, I am not sure that the thing is completely baked, as it were.  

There is that nagging feeling that out there, a few things remain to fall into place.

---

I would be lying if I said I was not approaching this with trepidation - mostly because of the fact that I know that this is going to end of pushing me way outside of the quiet comfort zone that I have spent years constructing for myself.

But I do not really know that I have a choice, trepidation or not.  We can only ignore things so long as we choose not to engage with them or they are not apparent to us; once they reveal themselves and begin to eat away at the framework, we have no choice but to work to reconstruct things based on the new reality.

One wonders if the incipient butterfly feels fear as it prepares to break through the chrysalis. 

On Worry And Concern

Today's post is indirectly posted as a result of recent events.  Not so much about the events themselves, but from the ramification of said events.

Perhaps said differently, about worry and concern and "The End Of The World as we know it".

Over the course of my life, I have been concerned about a great many things.  Some of them were significant world shaking events.  Some of them were constrained to my small circle of the world.  Some of them just involved me and my own issues.

In almost every case, the worry and concern that I had never manifested itself into anything that amounted to anything.

Well, not precisely true.  I did get myself worked up a great deal and spent a great deal of emotional energy on things that ended up either not impacting my life at all or having minimal impact.

---

One of the great realizations of adulthood is how little influence we have on most things.

We cannot influence the weather no matter how badly we would like it to cooperate with our planned activity.  We cannot directly influence the policies of governments or companies if they have decided to take particular actions (yes, we can vote, express our opinion, vote with our wallet, etc. - but if an organization of any kind has set its mind to a course, it conveniently forgets to listen).  We cannot influence events of world shaking impact from our homes on Sunday (as I write this), staring a cup of lukewarm coffee.

We can worry about them.  We can shout to the sky about them and (nowadays) post on Social Media about our anger or concern or worry or "This is it!" We can even react to the situation by taking actions which are not very helpful or even sensible but somehow make us feel like we are doing something (like, for example, suddenly stockpiling toilet paper).

We can do a great many things which have no impact, but make us sick with worry and fear and concern.

---

We can pray of course - and well we should, for we are commanded to.  But even in those prayers we are asking for God to act on our behalf in accordance with His will, not our own.  And God's plans are certainly not our own; I myself have spent a great deal of my life learning just how far my plans are misaligned from His.

Strangely enough, His plans very often have little to do with my own concerns and anxieties of current things.

---

Beyond that, what can I do?

Well, be aware of course in general.  But not aware to be fearful, but aware to take actions as they can be taken.  But not out of fear or anxiety, out of measured concern.

Carry on, as the British said in World War II.  Events may very well overtake us all.  On the other hand, I could die in a car crash coming home this week (a perhaps far more likely scenario) or one of the many local volcanos could erupt.  I cannot control those events.  Neither can I control any of these.

But not worry. Or be completely dominated by any concern or hang breathlessly on the latest news report or social media outburst.  After all, it is often not the event itself which can cause harm, but the unthought through and panicked responses that can create the most damage. 

Being lost happens:  wandering off and getting lost or setting fire that burns down the forest hardly helps us get found all the quicker.

February 2026 Grab Bag

 It is genuinely hard for me to believe that it is already the end of February.  The year is 1/6th past already, and I feel I that I have both seen profound change and nothing has happened at all.  It strikes me both as odd and completely normal.

---

Our lease has come up for renewal at New Home 2.0.  There are more options now:  Month to Month, 9 Month, 12 Month, 15 Month.  Our rates have not gone up in two years, which surprises me a bit to be honest, given that one hears so often about the housing market being impacted even here.  We have gone ahead and elected to extend for another 15 months, which puts out past midyear 2027 if for no other reason than to lock in the rate; at this point there is no indication that we would move before then unless something significant happened (it always might, of course), and I would rather run the risk of that than have my rent go up, especially in these rather inflationary times.

Besides, even with The Ranch likely closing, we are still no closer to a permanent landing point than we were before.  And, the thought of moving again is not attractive at this time.

---

There is no word on contingencies falling off The Ranch yet.  The process of notification is underway regardless - one way or the other, we need to be ready.

Beyond that, the things I need to plan are getting a storage locker and finding a mover to get the last stuff out of the barn.

---

In what appears to be a reversal of the last 6 years, my travel agenda largely falls off after June (with a single flight in August for my hike).  I have effectively dropped from at least one flight somewhere a month to no flights currently on calendar (see exception above) until possibly the Christmas holiday.

I do not know that I mind that, but I know that at some point it will be a definitive change.

---

It is shocking to me that I only returned from Japan three weeks ago.  Like normal, it feels like a lifetime ago.

Odd how time works.  In some ways - other than the pictures, obviously - it feels as if I never went.  How quickly ordinary life takes back over.

An Extra Nickel And A Parking Lot Penny

 Some weeks ago I found myself at a local store procuring a needed item.  I was using cash as in this case, the timing of the purchase along with the event would make it highly suspect as to what I had done and when I had done it if I had used a credit card (a fancy way of saying perhaps I failed to plan). The item, when rung up, came up to X dollars and 99 cents.  I put in my appropriate amount of cash.

Instead of getting a penny back, as I have for my entire life, I got a nickel back.  The screen read "Total tendered:  $X.05".

Welcome, I realized, to the world of the life without the penny.

---

This was not the first time I had seen this, of course.  "Exact change is appreciated" comes up more and more at stores that accept cash.  I had at least one cashier dig out of the previously known as "penny jar" to make up the difference.  I had another cashier do as I had seen here, effectively enter an overpayment as "received" so they could give me a nickel.

I wonder how long until "the penny jar" becomes an archaic phrase, to be trotted out in movies about previous eras where the young of that day will look and marvel.

---

Japan, interestingly is still very much a cash society. Like us, they have small change:  1, 5, 10, 50, 100 Yen coins (also 500 Yen coins, but those are not nearly as common).  Like us, Japan has tax on everything.

Japan takes their small change very unseriously in one sense: the 1 yen coin, for example, is made of aluminum and is considered virtually useless.  For a traveler, they collect like pocket lint if you spend enough time in a combi-ni (convenience store).

For better or worse, they seem to have come up with a unique solution.  1 Yen and 5 Yen coins are apparently the most desirable to place in offering boxes at Shinto Shrines and Buddhist temples.  

It certainly helps clean out the pockets at the end of a trip.

---

This past week as I was crossing a parking lot, I stumbled across a beat up penny in the parking lot.

The penny was scarred and had some kind of gunk on parts of it - but still clearly a penny, so I picked it up and popped in the cup holder of my car to allow it to dry.

While pennies may be disappearing, a penny saved is still truly a penny earned.

On Memories And The Real World

FOTB (Friend-Of-This-Blog) Old AFSarge at Chant du Depart (and who invariably posts great things - if you do not follow him, you should) wrote a post which I found strangely moving entitled Old Times, Good Times.  It is worth a read; the very short version is it is a walk down memory lane based on a photo from his own childhood and history/story behind it.

From the post: 

"As I get older, I remember times like that more and more.  I can remember the smell of the smoke from the sap being boiled, the wood waiting to go into the fire, the mud, the snow.  The spring sunshine just starting to make the days a little more pleasant after a long winter.

I remember my grandfather, not a man to express his feelings in words, more by deeds.  My Dad, always trying to teach us boys not to be idiots, he had his work cut out for him with me!  Mom and Gram in the kitchen, cooking and/or baking something."

---

That post - those words - resonate with me on a couple of levels.

One is simply the remembering of times long ago, something made more real by the fact that - sooner or later - a place I have a great many childhood and adult memories of, The Ranch, will pass to other hands.  In visiting my parents' house, I have the memories of myself as an adult and Na Clann when they were children, largely suburban children in a forested wonderland.  In visiting my Aunt and Uncle's house - the house that belonged to my Great Aunt and Great Uncle - I have my own boyhood memories, of chickens and walking through a barn filled with all kinds of weird and wonderful things, of watching my dad change his oil and going with him and my Great Uncle to burn brush in the Winter, of family reunions and sitting in my Dad's lap driving the Ford 9N tractor.

Is it fair to call them simpler times? Perhaps, although I am sure to adults living in those times, they likely seemed no simpler than my life today.  Much of what for us is automated was for them manual, meaning more time spent doing things.  You could not have anything you wanted drop shipped to your door step within a day, so you made do with what you had and what your local retailers had.  The health issues we consider resolvable today were not then; we take cancer cures and artery cleanouts for granted when in those days they were death sentences.

The second thing that resonates with me is just the noticing of details.

Modern life, in that aspect, does a number on us.  For many or most of us, our lives are largely defined by the buildings we work in.  Our time outside is a walk from the house or apartment to the car, from the car to the office or light commercial building or industrial site or store we work at, and then the reverse when we go home.  Too often what we see or experience of The Real World is seen through glass or screens, temperatures only experienced in the moments where we do not have climate control.  Communications with others - especially significant others, like friends or family - are too often words on a glowing screen or the odd electronic voice through a phone call. Food is both abundant - and the same; we have strawberries all the time instead of in season.  

One could argue we have gained fresh (but not necessarily good) fruit and on-time delivery at the cost of our souls.

---

Am I calling for some kind of return to some sort of pre-Modern era?

Not necessarily, no.  I do enjoy climate control.  And frankly, the health benefits alone in that so many formally fatal diseases are now treatable and curable are, in my mind, a pretty strong reason to be thankful.

But it does make me ask two things of myself:

1)  Am I creating those memories for others that were created for me?  Arguably in our transient world of commercialism and virtual reality (instead of in-person reality), it is harder than ever to get the sort of Real World memories that are not things like shows we watched or games we played.

2)  Am I taking time to appreciate the world in its beauty and complexity as I can? Do I look at the sunrises and sunsets for a moment instead of rushing to my car?  Do I rejoice and even look wistfully at the clouds and rain (outside my window right now), or consider them a nuisance to be moved through as quickly as possible?  

Do I enjoy and make use (in that sense) of the Real World, or is it simply a place that I inhabit?

On Returning From The Far Abroad 2026 Version

The suitcase is unpacked and clothes are washed, the training weapons are cared for, the random collection of things I purchased now in a pile for placement for display.  I got one good night of sleep on Friday (10-12 hours) before Saturday's nights game of "Wake Up, it is time to be training" at 0 Dark Thirty.

Like it or not, I am back and reality is ready to come crashing back in.

The most important question is "What is different from when you left?"

---

It may seem a bit odd that this would one of the main thoughts coming out of such a trip.  To me, it is not such a surprise:  one of the expectations of my school is that after every training with our Grand Master, we are expected to write a paper on our experience and what we learned (yes, even in my late 50's, I still have homework and reports due).    And being a blogger (as I am), I have become used to the idea over the years that part of my travels include preparing for how I am going document my experiences upon my return.

On the one hand, it is a great habit to have:  one tends to think and document things as they come to mind or occur.  On the other hand, it can become a bit of a challenge when all one ever does is collect experiences for the purposes of reflection and writing.

Both the paper and the blogging have exacerbated the already existing tendencies I had of being quiet and self reflective.  It helps, too, that as an introvert, the idea of reflecting on things is seen as having merit.

---

What I have at the moment are more a series of random items, observations and reflections as they presented themselves.

1)  "Current Events" have limited appeal in the outer world: I was out of the news and social media loop (more or less) for almost two weeks.  It was - frankly - refreshing.  To be fair, I did not necessarily seek out news in Japan either.  But I surely did not miss the sort of breathless events that seem to be happening on both sides on almost a minute by minute basis here.  And other than a couple of comments, our training group was largely free of commentary as well (by a sort of unspoken agreement).    I suspect it would sadden and shock many here that "current events" could equally be defined as "transitory news" that quickly loses steam outside of their relevant surroundings.

Frankly, I did not miss it one bit.  And it was a good reminder that one really can lead a life largely divorced of the madness that seems to constitute much of modern life.

2) My 2026 Intentions are on target:  As you might recall from my 2026 Intentions (not goals!), I had identified passing the N4 Japanese Language Proficiency Test (JLPT) and paring down my life as two intentions. Being in Japan convinced me that pursuing the JLPT is a right thing to do (after all, I intend to keep going as long as I am able and if so, why not be able to speak better?).  And paring down my life - partially in this case by continuing to pursue Iaijutsu (and not just adding new things) - is a goal worth pursuing.

Time is limited.  Make it count.

3)  One really can change - One of the high points (and most surprising things to me) was from a fellow student who I only see during these seminars.  He commented to me that my demeanor seemed changed from the last time that he had trained with me, which would have been in 2025.  His comment was that I no longer seemed afraid or nervous when I was called forward to demonstrate a technique.  

One does not get the feedback that one has changed for the better often, even less so when it is something that seems to have happened without conscious awareness.  

4) I am on the right path:  The past year between the 2025 and 2026 seminars has been rougher than I anticipated.  I did not plan on an injury which has impacted my ability to do certain techniques.  I did not know that I would decide to let The Ranch go - and by default, that the course of our lives may very well end here in New Home 2.0 (or elsewhere, who knows).  I did not think that some of the choices I have made over the past year would have been made, or that things that had once valued no longer had the same value to me.

As it turns out, it has all turned out for the best. Which gives me comfort that while the path of my musha shugyo, or warrior's pilgrimage, is not what I had intended, it is the path I am intended for.

5)  Focus on the things that matter:  One of my favorite quotes from the Buddhist monk Takuan Soho runs "If you follow the present day world, you will turn your back on The Way.  If you would not turn your back on The Way, do not follow the world."  

There are a great many things that really do matter in life.  Very few of them are actually what people think are important