"I Wonder If"

Something happened to me on the way to my life: I found out I could push back.

It was subtle enough.   I was listing a few things on Craigslist for sale.  I looked at the price I had posted on it last time, said "I wonder if", and hiked the price 20%.  It sold.  I did the same thing with the beloved Protege that we are selling.  Even with its age and some issues I looked at what I originally was going post, said "I wonder if", and doubled the price.  I received three interested offers; I am sure one of these will buy. 

This is atypical behavior for me - usually I approaching things from the point of view of what I think someone is likely to pay - based not on any outside information but rather my own internal voice telling me "It's not that good - and after all, you don't want to be that confrontational."  But this time I took a chance - a small one to be sure, and one which was not unrecoverable from if it failed.  But still a chance.

And it worked.  I cannot tell you the level of confidence I felt after I got those e-mails and had that cash in hand.  Suddenly I started looking around thinking "What else can I post and how much can I get?"

I dwell in reality of course - real estate taught me that something is only worth what someone else is willing to pay.  But the connection I never made before it is always not best to determine in your own mind what someone else is willing to pay. 

But in the larger scope of things, what a subtle change.  I moved from a position of helplessness and dependence - "What will they give me?  What if they don't like me if I ask too much?" - to a position of strength  - "Let me ask.  There is no harm in asking."

"I wonder if".  What a powerful statement.

What a statement to apply to the rest of my life.

An Unknown Crossing

It is Friday night and I am writing.

I know this is not a typical thing for me.  But I find myself deeply troubled this evening.  An event happened at work which has left me feeling....odd:  a coworker left.

Not a planned leaving anyone was aware of.  Not a leaving I directly expected.  Not a leaving that was mentioned 30 minutes before they left.

An e-mail.  And then they were gone.

It troubles me because in my heart of hearts it feels like I was on the wrong side of this equation: one of them.  The Bosses.  The Man.  The Power.  The People You Do Not Tell What Is Really Going On.

This bothers me.  It bothers me deeply, actually.  I hate being left out of the loop - especially when I like to think of myself of someone that is in touch with the pulse of what is going on from day to day:  the pulse, the ebb and flow of the environment.  Instead, I find myself on the outside looking in:  confused, wondering what I could have done better or differently - maybe not avert the actual leaving but to at least be in a position to wish a cheery "Good Luck".

Have I bought into the system that much?  Am I trying to "get ahead" in a system or in a way that leaves me isolated from what I was, or what I once hoped to be?

This person was not a silly person - they were intelligent, talented, very capable, fun humorous - exactly the sort of coworker one could hope for.  It is always a matter of great concern when such a person leaves.

The second thing - a lesser issue to be sure - is simply the sense of yet another person going.  I have seen so many people leave over the last 4 years - many good friends, good people, moving on to better things. 

We will go in on Monday.  Some sort of announcement will be made of course:  the incident will be downplayed, someone else will be brought in, and life will go on.  In some fashion the position will be filled - even if the hole in our little dysfunctional family will not.

But it will still leave me with a question as I get up and walk out of the room:  what have I become, or what am I perceived as, that I seem to have crossed over a divide I never knew I traveled?

Carla J. Clay Studios

So my friend Carla, who is an incredibly talented artist, has a website:  www.carlajclay.com.

You should really click through and go to her website.  Maybe even buy something at her store.

What?  You are still here?  Go look!

High School Football

The Weekday Night Lights
Are exciting for football,
but morning comes soon.

A Hint of Sadness

One of the habits I have picked up over the years is following my old employers.  Initially this probably started as a reaction to the fact I was curious how their stock was doing; over time it has turned into an exercise about how the companies are faring in the industry.

Yesterday I took a stop by the company who is the successor to the company that shut down in 2009, the company that led us to new home.  The company itself has passed on but the intellectual property - and many of the people - have coalesced at a new company.  They seem to have done quite well for themselves, having moved forward in the last three years and broadened their programs to give them breadth.  On a whim, I also went to Linked In to see who I knew working there.  All of a sudden a name popped up with a title:  "Director, X".

It was my old department.

I immediately clicked through to their Linked In profile.  It turns out we had actually met once at a job fair long ago.  Our paths had dodged around each other as well:  they had worked at a company we received product from, they came to the company I left to start the Firm.

I was overwhelmed with despair.  That was my position.

Or that should have been my position.  I interviewed for it in 2010, when we were back in Old Home.  On a lark, I went in.  I knew the people.  I knew the product.  I knew their systems - good heavens, I helped to write them.  But I was in New Home at the time, and would have needed moving assistance to come back.  They were a small company and so (not unreasonably) they opted to go with a local consultant and then eventually a Director.  The Director whose profile I saw.

I slumped in my chair a bit.  This is the worst of all feelings - not that have had an opportunity and blown it, but that you were denied the opportunity in the first place and so never had the opportunity to blow it.

One can make the argument that it makes things seem even worse when such a think arises.  I suppose that's true.  But when one is never really happy in the first place it just seems to rub salt in the wound, especially when opportunity (or at least the hope of it) seems to have abandoned the shores of your life.

I will keep up with company, of course.  They are doing really novel and important work in their field, the sort of thing that if it succeeds could be a game changer.  But I will always be watching with a trace of sadness as I hopefully see them march from success to success - for they are marching forward, while I seem stuck in place.

Back in the Saddle

Back in the Saddle,
We have internet again.
No more coffee shops.

Shipping

“Artists Ship.” – Steve Jobs

One of the interesting features of Steve Jobs that I find interesting – and reinforced by my recent reading of Seth Godin – is the phrase “Artists ship”.  For Jobs this meant that it meant that it was not enough to be merely creative or to seek to express one’s self creatively.  The ultimate outcome of the art should be to ship:  to complete the project or item and move it on into the world at large.  The artist that did not ship was, to Jobs, the same as the artist that did not complete anything at all.

This statement has challenged me as I have been languishing on the completion of the text that I completed last November.  I wish I could tell you why.  There seems to be a certain reluctance on my part to push the work to completion.

I wish I could understand what the issue was.  Part of me says that it is the self critic inside of me which keeps me from moving forward.  Part of me says it was the feedback that I received from the Createspace competition:  that my writing was such that it was hard to engage the characters.  And then I am consumed with the sense what I do is simply not worthy of moving to the publishing state.

Which is silly. 

True, my writing is not the height of Ernest Hemingway.  Arguably it has got better.  And non-engaging characters?  I have to rein myself in for a minute:  it was not a novel I was writing (which was part of the competition) but rather a fable – so of course character development is different.  What is stopping me?  The reluctance that if I ship I will not make the million dollar bestseller?  The fact is that I have not done so to date, but that has not prevented me from publishing before.

To have written, edited and not published is the same as not having written.  The question I should be asking myself is “Did I do my best?”  If I did, I can expect no better of myself – even as I this is the only thing I ask of all others.

To ship is to finish.  To ship is to put something to bed – and to be able (intellectually and emotionally) to move on to the next thing.  Could it be that the reluctance I find in myself to move to the next project is not as much a lack of creativity and ideas as it is my mind telling to finish before I move on?

Artists ship.  If I claim this title as a writer and author, I must do the same.

The Space Beside The Bed

As part of our “new” bedroom, The Ravishing Mrs. TB procured a pair of new bedside tables for use.  They are the same wood as the dresser and chest of drawers that we procured at IKEA.  Matched with a new beside lamp for each of us, it represents the first upgrade in bedside accouterments since 1993 and our pressed fiberboard screw-in table leg tables. 

So in the spirit of making a clean start as part of our new home, I am trying not only to reorganize but to simplify.

I am taking some of my cues based on the biography of Steve Jobs I am currently listening to.  Mr. Jobs, who had a great love (some could call it obsession) with design, described how he and his wife spent hours in the evening discussing the design and function of a washer and dryer.  I have not gone quite that far in my quest for reorganization, but I am trying to ensure that at least part of what I am doing has the function and appearance in mind.

Minimalist.  That is what I am striving for.  If I have it I should either use it or derive pleasure from it.  The having of things which neither are neither useful not provide pleasure is something I am trying to move away from.

The largest item on my table, which has been there for many years, is a basket that I keep various things in.  Moving towards the goal of keeping things as simple and minimalist as possible, I decided to remove the basket from the table leaving only my clock, my lamp and a drink coaster.

But what to store in the drawer.  It is obviously less spacious than the basket. So came the consideration of what I keep in the basket.

Two highlighters and four pens?  I need only one of each.  Cards?  They have sat for a year without examination; time to locate them to where I keep such things.  A flashlight?  There is a drawer, that will store the bookmarks as well.  My journal?  Now sitting atop a neat stack of books on the lower shelf.

The result?  A simple nightstand next to my bed with a minimum on it – and a minimum in it. 

I will be honest.  It is simple.  It is clean.  It is organized.

I love it.

Stumped

I find myself in a reluctant position to continue with my book editing.

The puzzles me a bit.  What I would perceive as the “hard” part of the book, the creation, is complete.  What remains is the (to me) tedious task of editing and re-editing, of listening to the flow of the language, and then the process of publishing.  If I have completed the “hard” part, why then do I find myself so reluctant to continue on?

It is actually sort of remarkable.  I have become almost pathological about working on it, finding reasons that I have other things to do, conveniently not having the blocks of time necessary to do it.  I have almost reached the point where the thought of working on another book has moved from my mind.

Why is this?  I love to write.  I love the exercise of put electrons to paper and developing my thoughts.  I was excited to see myself in print and even more excited when I actually made some money on the books.  But now, nothing.

Is it something more profound?  Is it the initial thrill of dream fulfilled meeting the reality of the world as it is and realizing that the dream, while good, has fulfilled its purpose:  it brought me to one finish line, but it was hardly the one I expected to find?

The act of writing and publishing was one of the hardest of my life in years.  Why?  Because it meant bringing something to completion, to the point of completion that it was actually ready to be done.  Having done it, I found it easy to do again.  But having done it again, I found that the return was not the same the next time out.

 
Is this because of my own expectations?  Have I convinced myself that the important part is not so much me expressing myself in hopes of somehow impacting someone else as it is me wanting fame and fortune showered upon me because, for once in my life, I finally showed up with 100% effort?
 

The reality is that the third book will most likely not bring me that return.  But that is no reason not to complete it.  I initially started writing (I think) as an output of a soul that was seeking to find a way to influence others, to help someone, to make a difference.  Those goals have not changed – but neither has the equally important goal of learning to finish what one starts.

The finishing is the thing.  Anything I realize from it is merely frosting on the cake of accomplishment.

Done then. I will push on to the finish line – because only by finishing do you get the bragging rights.  All else is merely talk by those who simply could not push through.

Wild Rabbits

Running in the dark,
wild hares eat nervously:
Flash!  I am outpaced.

Retaking the Initiative

So the move is completed.  The house is somewhat unpacked, at least unpacked to the point that we can move around and begin to reconsider the placement of everything we have – and why we have it.

Part of the outcome of the move is that everything we have is now under one roof – ours.  No more storage of items in the houses of others or in small outbuilding.  Everything we own now exists within the four rectangular walls that we call home.

Another outcome of the move has been the “downsizing” (I use the term loosely) in the size of our  house – certainly in square footage but more relevantly in the number of rooms and closets that we have.  Suddenly we have less places to organize and keep all of the items that we own, that we have dragged with ourselves from place to place convincing ourselves that these are critical things we have to keep.

The move has allowed us to retake the initiative of remaking and retooling our lives.

Retooling.  That sounds like such a big word, does it not?  A sort of massive makeover involving the destruction of large pieces of equipment, the tearing down of walls and rebuilding of even larger walls, and the appropriation of even more complex pieces of equipment.  The result sounds like it should be the outcome of an industrial project, with gleaming steel and robotics ready for action.

The reality of our retooling is much less exciting.

Our retooling has much more to do with a reconsideration of all that we have brought with us – looking at it, considering it, and then determining if it is something which has value in our lives as we move forward.

We have accumulated a great amount of the stuff over the years – just this week we finally sold the last LPs what we had (the actual player is two years gone at this point).  Some of it was sentimental, some of it was what I thought would matter (Three years of Shepherd’s Conferences notes: Gone.  What did I think I would do with them?), some of it is for projects that have no meaning in my life right now.  It is a propitious time to reconsider what it is and why we still need it.

We will still have plenty of items to keep of course – my book collection (the bane of my moving experience) still lacks the bookshelves for permanent display – and the handmade items of Na Clann are safely tucked away.  Even after the consideration and removal, we will still have plenty of “stuff” to fill our lives.

But hopefully after this retooling, we will have “stuff” that has actual purpose and meaning to where we currently are in our lives, what we hope do, and ultimately what we hope to create as an outcome of our lives.

An Unexpected Interlude

You will have noticed that I have not posted in a while.

What is up, you may have asked?  Did a vacation suddenly loom that was unexpected?  Did a horrible tragedy occur that has kept him from writing?  Or has he merely become a bit lazy?

None of the above, I am afraid.  I – and we – are victims of a combination of corporate systems and bad customer service.

With the advent of our move we had a simple request:  keep our current number, the one we have had for four years.  What has transpired is a farce in which over the course of three weeks we have had three phone numbers, two rounds of internet access, reaching to the point that we currently have no phone number and no internet access.  We are “assured” that we can get access – and possibly phone at this point – on September 10^th, almost one month after we moved.

This is a failure of epic proportions.

By our count, the Ravishing Mrs. TB has spent approximately 10 hours on the phone over the last two weeks trying to get the situation worked out.  We have spoken to at least 7 different individuals – all nice in their own way and trying to be helpful, but unable to actually help us resolve our problems.   A victim of corporate processes, we are informed that “It takes a week to get anything done.”

What a shame for them.

It is inconvenient for us of course – but they have pushed us into action as a less inconveniencing incident might not of.  For the first time we are seriously looking at “Do we need a home phone?  Can we get by on cells alone?  And what other options do we have for internet?”  And now we are motivated enough to be willing to do something – motivated to the point that options which had previous only been interesting discussion items are now active considerations.

The price of inaction is sometimes not just opportunity lost.  It can sometimes be the very undercutting of your business model – or your life.

A Useful Filter

Bogha Frois is a genius.

She sent me this link yesterday:

  http://www.marieforleo.com/2011/07/great-opportunities-vs-time-wasters/

I have never heard of Mario Forleo before.  Apparently (judging by the pictures on her website) she has been on Oprah so she has some level of fame.

But her genius was revealed in the short clip above.

The point of the video is simply not that you have goals, but that you have a "filter" - a single question which you ask about everything you do.  Based on your goal, you simply ask "Will this help me to do my goal?"  If it does, you do it.  If not, you do not.

What a simple yet profound concept.

Energized by this thought I sat down and made a list of things that I wanted to do in the short term.  For each of these goals - financial, physical, career, intellectual, spiritual, personal - I wrote the simple question:

"Will this help me become a published author?"
"Will this help me master the shoden body of knowledge?"
"Will this help me become a stronger Christian?"
"Will this help me move towards a new career?"

And so on.

The beauty of this is that it is not complicated.  It is simple.  It is a single question.  It has two possible answers:  yes (it will move me forward) or no (it will not move me forward).  And based on this, one then simple acts in accordance with the answer.

Simple.
Elegant.
Easy.
Profound.

I love it.

Drought

The promise of rainfall,
drifts fruitlessly overhead:
dying grass crackles.

Just Run

Occasionally one has the strange and utterly undeserved good fortune of seeing someone develop over time.  Such things are seldom vouchsafed to us even though we may spend months or years with a person; in my experience it is the rare relationship where I can look and see a person's growth.

Such an event happened over the last weekend with Fear Beag.

I watched Fear Beag over the last four years of our acquaintance as he has developed a sense of personal health, moving from a smoker and non-exerciser to a casual runner to a dedicated runner.  It has been a pleasure - not only for the health benefits of course, but in the development of his character and his way of looking at life.  He has developed from someone who could barely run around the block to someone who is contemplating 3 marathons this year.

He has been recently troubled by a leg injury - he has explained it multiple times, I think it involves a muscle of some kind - to the point he has had to pull back on his running.  It has troubled him to the point that he had numerous visits with a massage practitioner, icing and heating - anything to relieve the pain and get running again.

He has slowly been getting better but continues to be plagued by this injury.  He constantly laments his lack of distance, his time, his desire to be out on the course running.

Finally, he had an epiphany.  He was even kind enough to share it with the rest of us.

He posted that he was running and after one mile, was having issues.  Then, to paraphrase him, "I just gave up.  I gave up on Garmin time, on pace, on distance, on the perceived pain and just started running."

I read this post and was struck breathless by the thought.

How true is this for my own life - to get to the point that one simply surrenders one's concern about everything that is involved in an activity and simply do the activity?  How often am I concerned with how I am doing this or that, how this or that looks, how much progress I am making - and forget to pay attention to the fact that I am doing the activity at all?

Musashi would have recognized this.  The great swordsmen of the past would have recognized this.  This, to them, was the beginning of true mastery:  having learned the basics, one begins to become more concerned with the exercise of the art.  By internalizing and then acting on that internalization unconsciously one achieves not only mastery, one begins to develop one's own style and technique - in effect, one truly becomes one's self.

Strangely enough, this post gave me hope - not so much hope that the immediate arena of my own life will change, but the hope that by simply letting all the technical concerns and reasons not to do something fall away, the core of who I am  - of what I am trying to do - will reveal itself.

Fear Beag will run his races - and do very well, I do not doubt.  I am hopeful that his blazing the trail will allow me to run my own races of life with equal clarity of mind.

All I Know

I bruise you
You bruise me
We both bruise so easily
Too easily to let it show
I love you and that's all I know

And all my plans
Keep fallin' through
All my plans, they
Depend on you
Depend on you
To help them grow
I love you
And that's all I know

When the singer's gone
Let the song go on
There's a fine line between
The darkness and the dawn

They say in the darkest night
There's a light beyond
And the ending always
Comes at last
Endings always
Come too fast
They come too fast
And they pass too slow
I love you
And that's all, it's really all I know
It's all I know

It's all I know.

- Five for Fighting

Stars

The stars dance above,
mulitcolored hues of light:
I stand in darkness.

Mid Life

How does one know when precisely when one has slipped into a mid-life crisis?

What differentiates such a thing from the run of the mill personality crisis?  Is it the age?  Is it the intensity?  Is it the feeling that one has spent the last 25+ years of one's life chasing paths that were not necessarily the most desirable ones?

It is hard to question such a thing, of course.  Merely to suggest it is to set off warning signals in some, which is perhaps why we do not discuss such a thing in the first place.  The question "Are you happy?  No, I mean really happy?" inevitably triggers reactions where none may be required.

It is still a question, of course.  One I am grappling with now.

Is life terrible?  No, far from it.  We have a new house.  We have good jobs.  Na Clann are doing well in school and in their personal lives.  We recently got a new-to-us car.  I have activities and friends.  Certainly I am in no crisis mode.

But is this it?

This is the question I grapple with almost daily now as I rise.  Is this it:  the morning routine, the commute to the career that was not the aspiration of my life, the commute home, the seeming externalities of family living, the wedging in of things that I enjoy to do, and then to sleep to rise to do it all over again.  Is this it?

Where is passion?  Where is excitement?  Where is that living on the wild edge that pulses the heart and excites the spirit?  Where is that anticipation of looking forward to every day as if it were a new present to be unwrapped and enjoyed?  

There is a heavy sense of gray about my existence - not the black of depression or the red of anger, but simply the gray of monotony.  The pounding realization that fundamentally, tomorrow will be like today which will be like the last series of years.

Where is the relief to this?  Not relief in the sense of a lifting depression where my spirits raise but rather in the relief in the sense of a life which offers that excitement, that passion, that "I am alive!" sense that I so much miss now.

I wish I knew.  But the world - the real world, at least my real world - beckons with its rounds of mundane tasks needing attention.

And that sense of I should be doing more, I should be living more, I simply should be alive will go back into the small part of my soul where I store such things - the small garden of my life where such things still flourish.

Man of Action, Man of Vision

I am not a man of action.

Oh, I know what people will say:  I am.  Yes, in the sense that there are a great many things that I will do, yes I am.  I have done things that I never would have contemplated years ago:  made cheese, practiced iaido, threw weights, grew a garden, ran races, played the harp, wrote some books.

But a man of action? In the classic sense of the word?  That hardly seems to fit my conception of myself.

When I think of men of action I think of the bold ones, the great ones, the ones who painted across the canvas of life with a broad brush, who change the conceptions of how we view entire technologies or ways of doing business or even something as simply as a cup of coffee.  These men hold a secret longing and aspiration in my heart.

Why?  Because they seem to exude self confidence, a sense of knowing their place in the world and where they are heading to.  They have a vision - be it a political system or the height of an art of a new way of doing business or even a fantastic way for impacting things for Christ - which they use a a motive power both to fuel them and to guide their day to day actions.

I lack this vision, this self confidence, this guiding inner picture of what it is I am here to do and how I am to accomplish it.  Instead I seem to lurch from side to side, taking in a project here, dabbling in something there, but never really using these interests in a grander sense of moving towards it: the thing, the goal, the vision.

How does one acquire such a thing?  Is it something one is born with?  Is it something that magically comes to one in the night?  Is it hours of reflection and meditation?  Or is it simply in a blinding flash of serendipity, the bolt from the blue that makes is sit upright?

I wish I knew.   All I do know is that I feel as if I am continuing to chase my tail while the richness and greatness of what is possible rolls by me like waves, bearing others up on the surf even as I simply float along.

Silence

I miss silence.

I was struck by yesterday morning as I sat and read a portion of a biography of Miyamoto Musashi.  It was early Sunday morning.  No-one but The Ravishing Mrs. TB was up as I sat on the couch in the new Taigh an TB, sipping my coffee and reading, listening to the rabbits occasionally hop about or eat.  Church was hours later and unpacking had, for the short term, ceased.

I found such peace in that moment, such joy, such a sense of being recharged in my life.  The thoughts poured off of the page and into my brain and lodged themselves there, unlike so often where they seem to skitter off the top of my mind like birdseed.  There was a sense of truly taking in what I was read and having the luxury of actually chewing the thoughts over in my head, evaluating them, personalizing them, even thinking of ways that they could be applied in my life.

Why can I not find more time for such silence in my life?

I am a person of silences and quiet.  This is the world I grew up in; this is how I spent my time:  alone or in a small group of people, with time and space enough to take my thoughts and make them into shining gems to apply within my own life.  A place and time where dreams and thoughts and creativity flourished in the protective environment of freedom and peaceful aloneness.

Could this be one of the reasons that I so often find myself out of sorts now, lacking creativity and the energy to pursue it?  My life is hardly filled with silence now, rather with the seeming tsunami of sound and disturbance that comes from the living in the modern world.  My space is constantly filled with people and conversation and noise and the needs and wants of others. 

It is enough to drive anyone mad.

Perhaps the first step then is this:  to find a place in my life where, for 15 minutes (to start) I can be totally in peace and silence.  If for no other reason than to rediscover a now-unknown country:  to rediscover myself.

Administrative Note

As you may have figured out from below, we are in the process of moving.  Posting may be a bit late over the next week as we get ourselves reconfigured.  Thanks for your patience!

Last Run

So this morning was the last run at our old house.

It is an odd thing, to gear up and go out and realize in the back of your mind that the likelihood that you will be running this course will be very small indeed.  Every passing footstep means that you are moving one step farther away from ever running this course again.

The flat straights and streets, the yards lit at night and various yard decorations which acquire fiendish appearances in the early morning darkness will disappear into the well of your memory.  The mileage that you have memorized so well - 3.2, 4.09, 5.16 - will not be calculated anymore.

You will find new course to run with their own mileage, their own fiendish appearances, their own decorations.  They will become the new reality of your run, and eventually you will come to know them as you have known these routes.

But what you will miss more than all is the last turn on the run.  It was this turn that meant that you had essentially achieved the distance you were going to run.  It was the sign that the last part of the run was going to begin, with home and coffee soon to follow.  In a sense that last turn has become the real last turn:  tomorrow and every day after this you will find that place no longer has any meaning outside of that time in your life.

Packing

Things into boxes;
the contents of a lifetime
sitting in cardboard.

Bargain

Bargains are a two way participatory relationship.

In a bargain two parties agree that they will exchange something for something else.  It can be as simple as "Here is 20 bucks; mow my lawn" to "Here is my trust; give me yours."  In both of these cases - and in all of the gradations in between - there is a certain element of understanding:  I do my part, you do your part, and bargain will be complete.

So what happens when someone fails to hold up their end of the bargain?

This also takes many forms.  It is as simple as failing to do what you said to do and as complex as failing to support someone else in a time of change when they needed it.  In these cases, and all the cases they bracket, the central aspect of understanding, of trust, is broken.

The realization that this has occurred is frustrating beyond words.  Suddenly all that you believed to be true - all that you worked for based on an assumption of an understanding - is ended.  Your effort is not totally wasted in its effect, but perhaps in its ultimate outcome.  You are left holding the sides of a bag which you thought was going to be full only to discover that the bag has a hole in the bottom, leaving you with a circle of fabric in your hands.

Real life does not stop going on at this point of course:  work still has to be accomplished, relationships still have to be maintained, the daily aspects of living go on.  But they lose a sense of building towards something else, something greater: they lose the sense of reaching that bargain that was agreed to.

What does one do in such circumstances?  One can attempt to simply muscle through the event, laughing at fate and sneering at the foibles of human nature.  This works for a while but ultimately seems to lead nowhere:  the agreement which was not met seems to become the new standard perhaps simply from assumption that things seem to be continuing in a forward direction.  They may from the outside of course; the reality is that the energy sustaining the effort dwindles over time, bereft of renewal from a sense of continuing to keep the bargain.

How does one renegotiate such a bargain?

Change

A man has a lot of time to sit and think, driving halfway across the country.

What do you think about, you might ask. Do you think about arriving back at home?  Do you think about where you have been?

Mostly I thought about my life.

My life seems to be in a large state of flux at the moment.  Between leaving to go to Old Home and drive back and the move and the work I need to get down while both of the other of these are happening I am feeling stretched.

But I am feeling stretched internally as well.

I am at the point that something needs to change.  My life has been pushed to the edge of cliff that it was on; the only solution is to climb up or fall down.

The falling part, although theoretically painful, is at least not as frightening to me in the sense that I understand the rocks at the bottom.  It is the climb up that frightens me more.  Why is this?  Because the climb up only seems to promise pain with no reward, the ache of arms and legs to a point that I cannot clearly see or define from here.

And it involves change - of me.  I am never very good with change, especially change at involves interactions with other people and with how I view myself in the world and more importantly, how I view myself in my own world.

I sense it and shudder.  It involves being brave, standing up, deciding and committing to actions, and following a course.  All things I do not feel terribly proficient in.

But I am not sure that I have a choice.  The cliff has run out.  The rocks threaten below.

Only the path up offers safety - even if it is only the safety of the unknown.

Kata in the Wind

One of the firsts I did this time on my vacation was bring my bokuto. I am in the process of training for my training certificate and did not want to lose the opportunity to continue to train.

Practicing here versus practicing at home has been somewhat of a wash. On the down side, I brought my second-best bokuto and so perhaps have not totally trained as hard as I could have. On the bright side, I had the opportunity to practice with the wind.

I have commented before on my love of this place because the wind, the silence so deep that the wind blowing through the trees is audible and sensible. It is my place in which God walks through the trees.

And, apparently, practices iaido.

In practicing my kata, my cuts and blocks and footwork, I found myself starting to dance in time with the wind and the trees. A sense of being at one with nature came over my soul as I rose and fell with the blade, the "whoosh" of the trees accompanying my blade's quiet descent. As I continued to move, crunching the brown pine needles beneath my trees, one began to get a sense of how the great swordmasters of the past practiced and trained as well, how they valued so much the time spent training alone with only nature as training partner and watching eye. The most successful of movements are those which are the most natural and mimic real life; dancing with the bokuto among the trees imbued a sense of flow and etheralness to the practical combination of wood and muscle.

I will return to Old Home this week; my studies will submerge themselves back into the routine of dojo and home. But remain hopeful that, even in the returning deluge of urban sound, the sounds of the wind will haunt my blade as it moves through the forms.

A Fuller Return

Sometimes I wonder how I ended up where I am.

The thought occurred to me as I was taking another stroll down the gravel road towards the main road in. I have been coming here for my whole life and looking at the road as I walked up it, I realized how little seems to have changed. Some of the outlines have changed, but the major contours of the land remain the same after four decades - in some cases, the trees have only grown bigger, not moved.

Four decades of coming up and yet I find myself very far away - a place that I always seem to be seeking to return to, in spirit if not in fact. Why is this?

It was at this moment, wandering through the trees, that suddenly the thought of performing kata came to my mind: how much I enjoy Iaido and how much I have learned.

And then came the thoughts of all else that has occurred since we moved: the people we met, the things we have seen, the humidity we have endured (not so notable, of course)and the activities that I have been able to participate in: Iaido, Heavy Athletics, running, cheesemaking, even more rabbits, authoring books.

Would I have found these things if I remained? Possibly. But in going away, what came to my mind is that I have expanded more than what I very well would have had I simply remained where I was.

Does such a thing preclude a return? I do not believe so. Even as I had not planned the going out, so I suspect any return would be a surprise as well: a random event not suspected but ultimately welcomed.

Perhaps that was the great realization as I crunched my way down the road back both to my past and to my future: the going away has not made less attached or less connected but rather more full so that in the event I were to return - or even if I never do - I will find myself greater for the experience.

And I, like the countours of the land I passed by, will be the same even as overlay of my life becomes more vibrant and full.

Upon Seeing an Old Teacher

Yesterday I had the rather unique experience - and pleasure, be it known - of seeing an former high school teacher.

This was a first for me. Other than keep in direct touch with our band teacher (The Band Teacher From Whom All Things Good In High School Flow) for a number of years, all the others tended to fall by the wayside of contacts over the years: moving away, college, getting a degree, finding a job, children - and then moving very far away indeed.

It is for situations like this that (even I am forced to admit)Facebook is admirably suited. Suddenly last year, a friend request pops up from a someone that you literally have not spoken to in almost 30 years.

What constitutes a memorable teacher? In my day (I am old enough to say that now) we did not have a great pool of teachers - maybe fifty - and of those, less band of course, I could have possibly had a total of twenty. Of these twenty there are two that I can look back on and say had impacts that continue to resonate through my life to this Day: Mr. Q (The Band Teacher From Whom All Things Good In High School Flow) and Mr. D.

To analyze my relationship with Mr. D looking back, one would be hard pressed to say that it was something that should have had such impacts. He was my geometry and trigonometry teacher - subjects which I did okay in during high school but met only my minimum requirement for in college to get me degree (I am still not a fan). I TA'ed for him as well.

Math, one would think, is not the sort of thing that one would receive life changing lessons from: theorems are still theorems and triangles have not changed since the days of Pythagoras. And the time frame - one period a day for three years - is not the sort of time that one expects any sort of mentoring to occur. So why the impact?

Because Mr. D cared. He cared in two ways. He cared about my performance - when I was having trouble in class and it was due to my inability to focus (pretty much due to the fact I had rather focus on the pretty girl next to me) it was Mr. D that got my attention by sending me out of clas (the only time that ever happened) and having a meeting with my mother concerning the fact that he thought I could pass, but I needed to focus. Funny enough, he got his message across. I dedicated myself to passing that class - put away the distractions of my life and worked hard. As I recall, I got a B - not great, but far better than I could have done without his intervention. If I sit and think about it, I can trace most of my sense that I have the ability to do what I set my mind to from this experience.

The second way was in what he thought of my future - far better than I thought of it myself. For one of my college applications (one I did not ultimately end up going to) he wrote that while he believed I was capable of doing well he would be sorry to see me go so far away, as he would like to see my growth through the years. Of all my recommendations, his is the only one that I still recall. And his is the one that has stuck with me all these years: the belief that my life would be something worth following.

The lunch was great; catching up was that sort of experience that one can only hope for when seeing someone after a long time: no sense of time dragging or wandering into areas that someone else does not care about. It was a good experience, one I have an excuse to recreate the next time I am in town - after I collect a new set of adventures, of course.

I look at my own children now, as I try to infuse in them the sense that they can do anything that they want to and put their mind to and that they can have lives which are worth following to themselves and others - because somewhere back in my own misty past, a teacher took the time to look through the tangles of formulas and shapes on a board and do a little bit extra.

Thanks Mr. D. The next round is on me.

Always Coming Home

So we arrived at The Ranch last night.

I treated myself to a walk this morning. The woods were quiet, the quiet of mountains with nothing be trees and wind around them. The loudest noise was the crunch of my feet on the road as I walked towards the main road. I did hear the brief sound of two cars driving by - this constituted the rush hour for the day.

Coming back, one can almost hear the sunlight falling on the leaves and needles. The cattle in what was once (and now is again) the upper meadow looked at me curiously as I tromped past, a stranger outside of the usual rounds of owners and parents that they see. In the distance a flock of young tom turkeys, picking their way through the meadow as a disparate group of youth pick their way through the mall, slowly sauntered along picking at the occasional early morning grasshopper or other insect that failed to get out of their way.

It is high summer here now; the green of spring is long gone except for the needles of the pines and cedars that dot the landscape. The spring grasses are dry brown and cut short, their blandness only interrupted by small yellow flowers that seem to litter the area in front of the house.

There is a sense - I cannot truly define it - a sense of being at peace, of being home in a way that anywhere else does not fully fulfill for me. This place, nestled high in the mountains and overlooked except for those who know that it is here, radiates a sense of grounding and rightness that I cannot find anywhere else.

This is home.

Change and Stasis

I feel trapped both in a state of change and in stasis.

On the one hand my life feels like it is completely in a state of flux.  We are in the process of moving and closing out this house, even as I am getting ready to leave for a week of vacation to pick up a van and then motor back.  Essentially all of An Teaglach was out last week, and I will be out for the next week.  Part of my life is already packed away and who knows when I will find it; the other half is waiting to disappear into the vortex of packing boxes.  Na Clann start at different schools as well (the first time this has ever happened) so we are on the cusp of an even greater adjustment of schedules and times.

And yet so much feels the same.  My job is still my job, with its accompanying issues.  My life still feels and looks very much the same as it did before - a sense of a slow going in the same direction rather than any particular changes upcoming. 

In other words, the more things change, the more the seem to stay the same.

This bothers me somewhat.  I have always associated change with an overall good outcome, that something better was going to come of the situation. In this case I have no sense that something better is coming; rather, I simply feel that we are exchanging one living location for another without any sensation that this is an overall improvement.

I do not like change to no purpose.  Change is disruptive enough in a life; change that does not seem to improve anything simply makes it that much more unpleasant.

I keep waiting - perhaps hopelessly - for that moment when the better part of the change suddenly becomes apparent; where the life improvement reveals itself and all of a sudden the flux and change suddenly is revealed for the agent of a better tomorrow that I desperately wish they were.

But for now they remain silent:  the boxes slowly stack, the work continues one, and I attempt to manage my own sense wishing this change will go somewhere wonderful but managing my expectations that it will not.

Having Stuff

Preparing to move always has a way of getting me to consider the nature of the physical portion of my life i.e., the stuff that I have in it.  We pack everything up and it gets taken to the new location, where it either gets unpacked or perhaps simply left in its container until the next time we move, at which point we pry open the box, realize that it matches what is on the outside, and then seal it up to move on to the next place.

And as Charles Swindoll has noted, we seem to gain stuff as we move through life.  We start with what will fit in a car, then seem to move up to a truck, then a small U-Haul, then a larger U-Haul, until finally we need a semi-to take our stuff.

This thought process has taken a poignant ring to it as, two nights ago, Fear Beag's grandparents home burned to the ground.  It was totally destroyed.  At least 6 decades of stuff - of memories and life - is now ashes.

It gave me pause yesterday as he let me know and I sorted through the fact.  What would happen if our home burned tomorrow?  Everything we spent years acquiring and carting back and forth, including halfway across the country, would simply be gone.  Certainly we have homeowner's insurance and so would get our money, but that hardly replaces the real value - measured by comfort and sentiment - that such things have come to acquire.

The odd thing - odd to me at least - is that I like to pretend that I eschew the concept of being a person about stuff - yet here I am, swimming in it.  There are passing moments that I consider simply becoming a nomad - the times that I have had very little with me, as when I first moved to New Home or even when I attended seminar this month - have been some of the most clear and thoughtful times of my life.  Why?  With little stuff the mind is free to spend its time on other things.  As Randy Alcorn says, It's like a balloon:  once releases from being tied down, it's free to soar.

Will I ever become the yurt-dwelling nomad of my occasional flights of fancy?  I doubt it - I am too much of a book lover to ever really become a man of truly few possessions.  But hopefully I can at least become more mindful both of what I think I need and the fact that this stuff is ultimately not going to be here forever.  Yes, we should care for that which we have been given, but let us never confuse that care with the concept that it will be with us forever.  Let us seek to define ourselves by the character of our lives and not the collection of our things.

The Injury

Q:  So you didn’t post yesterday.  What’s up?

A:   I was running a little late yesterday morning.

Q:  Why?
A:  I actually got home at 3:30 AM from the Emergency Room.

Q:  Good Heavens!  What happened?

A:  A small training accident at Iaido Class.

 

Q:  Where did you get hit?  Did it hurt?
A:  On the bridge of the nose and under my right eye.  It didn’t hurt as much as some other things that I have had happen to me in my life. I honestly thought I was okay until I noticed I was bleeding a bit (by a bit, of course, I mean more than a bit).

Q: Did you black out?  Did you see flashes?  Did you see Elvis?

A:  No, unfortunately my life long dream of seeing Elvis failed to materialize yet again.

Q:  So you went to the emergency room.  What happened?

A:  I sat around a lot.  The initial ER doctor looked at me, and then another ER doctor looked at me.  They determined I had a “laceration with possible impact to the lachrymal canal”.  Also, I had a small piece of bone missing - a hole in my head, if you will (this will confirm what many of you have thought for years).

Q:  What happened then?

A:  I got transported via wheelchair to the CT scan (turns out there were no footrests for the wheel chairs – someone had been taking them all.  Go figure.).

Q :  How was the CT scan?

A:  It was cool!  It was like being in a StarGate:  The ring made noises and spun around, the table lifted you up and down.  I’ve been on rides that were less entertaining.

Q:  Good news there?

A:  Yup, no broken bones.
 

Q: And then they stitched you up.

A:  No.  I waited longer and they decided to send me to a larger ER to find an ophthalmologist to look at my injury. So I went by ambulance.

Q:  Was it a siren flashing, fun filled ride?
A:  No, really quite tame.  I shared the ride with a very nice woman who had her nose accidentally broken by her young son when he popped up from watching something and clocked her.  We were the “face trauma express”. I don’t believe the EMTs had ever had a run like us.  I’m sure we were disappointing in some ways:  virtually no pain to alleviate or anything to do other than monitor our vitals.  On the other hand, I’m sure they wish there were plenty more like us.

Q:  No sirens, huh?

A:  You’d be surprised how unoccupied New Home freeways are at 1:00 AM.
 

Q:  So you got to the next emergency room and then got stitches?

A:  Actually, no.  He was also concerned about the area of the injury – as he described it “There’s a lot of complicated machinery in there”.  This was about 2:30 AM.  I think we were all a bit tired and it was determined that I could go until the next morning at 9 AM with no risk.

Q:  So what then?

A:  By the time I picked my car up and got home it was almost 4:00 AM.  I got about 2 hours sleep before getting up to take Nighean Dhonn to Day Camp.

Q:  And then you got your stitches?

A:  No, then I went to the ophthalmologist.  Their opinion was that my eye looked fine (no damage to the retina, pressure was fine, ability to see was undiminished), but then wanted an ocular plastic surgeon to verify that there was no damage to my tear duct.

Q:  An ocular plastic surgeon?

A:  Yes.  Prior to about 16 hours ago I had no idea such a job title existed.

Q:  And then?

A:  I went to the ocular plastic surgeon.  Wonderful people.  They verified that my tear duct was working (turns out that it drains into throat.  Ask me how I know…).  Some Novocain and 10 stitches later, I arrived back home at 3:00 PM.
 

Q:  Are you going to have a scar?

A:  I’m sure hoping so.  I don’t know.  My surgeon was really, really good and I’m sure it would be taken as an indictment of their skill if there was one.  I, on the other hand, am hoping for the equivalent of the Heidelberg fencing scar of the last century.

Q:  Sounds like you saw a lot of doctors.
A:  I saw at least 5.  I saw more in the last 20 hours than I have seen in the previous 4 years.

Q:  How is The Ravishing Mrs. TB taking this?

A:  The Ravishing Mrs. TB is actually out of town on a mission trip with Nighean Gheal and Nighean Bhean.  I am convinced that between this and locking myself out of the house on Sunday she is never going to leave me home alone again.

Q:  You really locked yourself out of the house?
A:  We’re talking about my injury, not other issues…

Q: Best lines from the event?

A:  First Item:  Initial ER doctor examination:  She comes over to look at my injury, lifts it up, and says “C**p!”  This is not what you typically want to hear from your doctor.

Second item:  conversation with the EMT about my injury

“So you got hit with a sword?”
“Actually, a naginata.  Let me spell it:  n-a-g-i-n-a-t-a”.

(Silence)

“And that’s a …”

“It’s a Japanese pole arm.  It’s about six feet long and has a blade on the end-“

“Could we just say ‘Wooden pole arm?”

“That’ll work”

Third item:  conversation with the ophthalmologist:

O:  “So you do martial arts?”

TB:  “I do.”

O:  “So I should watch out?”

TB:  “Actually, no.  I’m pretty slow and more of a danger to myself than you.”

Q:  Overall Impressions?
A:  First of all, I was incredibly blessed.  God has been gracious in this entire event.  No serious injury (nor was anyone else seriously injured).  Insurance appears to cover everything. 

I was also blessed by a whole series of wonderful people:

-          My fellow student D who drove me to the ER and sat with me for 3 hours, took Laurel back home, came back and sat with me another 2 hours, then gave me a ride back to my car.

-          Our friend The Plumber who selflessly came over at midnight to stay here with Laurel until I got home.

-          All of my fellow students and senseis at my dojo who calmly and quietly went about cleaning up and not making a big deal about anything.

-          Without fail, every one of the medical personnel I met at four different medical institutions.  They were all pleasant, kind, professional and only interested in ensuring that I got the best treatment.  I never had any concern that I was not cared for or that I was forgotten.  If you have to be injured, New Home is a great city to do it in.

Second of all, I got to do a lot of firsts:

-          First CT Scan

-          First Ambulance Ride

-          First visit to an ophthalmologist

-          First visit to an ocular plastic surgeon

And a lot of other fun things:

-          Ride in a wheel chair.

      -          Got to sit in all kinds of chairs and beds that moved up, down, and in various pretzel poses.

-          My first visit in years to an ER that was for my own cause (and not one of my kids).

-          Learn all kinds of facts that will be useful in Trivial Pursuit:  Medical Edition.

Furthermore, I did my part for the art:  there are now at least 25 people who I am sure prior yesterday had never heard of Muso Jikiden Eshin Ryu that now know.

Q: Final thoughts?
A:  The short version?  I got poked and went to the hospital, where I got to meet many wonderful people and do a lot of neat things.  Maybe not one of my best days but surely one of the most interesting. 

There are times (like this) that Life turns out to be a great deal cooler than you anticipated.

The Thousand Mile Stare

I have acquired the Thousand Mile Stare at work.

I am not sure when it really started.  My sense of it was sometime around Thursday or Friday last week.  I think it is one of those things that one notices only after it has happened; the point of crossing over the line is never so precise as to be able to be exactly labeled.

The Thousand Mile Stare (originally called Thousand Yard Stare), for those that may not have heard the term before, refers to "the limp, unfocused gaze of a battle-weary soldier, but the symptom it describes may also be found among victims of other trauma.  A characteristic of post-traumatic stress disorder, the despondent stare reflects dissociation from trauma" (wikipedia.com).  It is the look and sense that events have simply overwhelmed one and retain one's sanity one has simply moved on.

Let us be clear:  I have been involved in no battle.  There is no trauma that I am aware of.  I have suffered no violent actions.  But my sense of the matter is the same.

It is the realization that, after four years of being in the same position, there may be a reason that traditionally I have moved on before this time.  The problems have simply become the every day accommodations that have to be endured.  Change is discussed about and talked about frequently but nothing ever really changes.  Power to implement change is denied or non-extant; dictates are expected to be executed no matter what their basis in reality.  There seem to be no consequences for the poor decision making of others, while any successes are simply brushed under the carpet without further adieu.

It is, in other words, an environment where failure is kept at bay by the simple expedient of ignoring it while success is allocated for the chosen few or simply slips away.

It is hard in such an environment to find motivation on a day to day basis.  Your work is never quite done.  Your successes are never quite noticed and failures, even if the result from the situation and not from you personally, are held against you.  The hope that something different is going happen, that something breakthrough is going to occur, has long disappeared.  There is nothing but the sense of the long slide petering off into twilight.

What to do?  This is the part that continues to bother and haunt me.  It is not an environment where effort invested results in perceivable dividends.  It is not an environment where professional growth leads anywhere.  It is not an environment where this time next year I will be doing anything different than this time last year.

But where else to go?  I have doing this long enough to realize that everywhere has elements of the same thing.  And something different?  What would that be?  How could that be viable?

I wish I knew.  All I know now is that every day as I get up in the morning there is a vague dread on my soul, a tiredness of spirit that I know will not disappear until I open the door to return home.

Closing My Eyes

I have a habit of closing my eyes.

Oh, not just physically (sure, I do that at night).  The larger concern is when I do it mentally to situations I simply do not want to address.

Where does this come from? Good question.  I am not really sure I can answer that meaningfully.  I suspect part of it stems from a sense of powerlessness about situations such that if I do not see I cannot know.  Part of it stems from the fact that I do not enjoy confrontation in the least, and many things that one closes one's eyes to require confrontation to deal with.  A third is even more basic:  I simply do not derive any pleasure from arguing about things.

The problem of course is that such things do not go away. At best they linger, not really getting any different.  At worst, they metastasize and become far more difficult - some times, too difficult to otherwise deal without radical measures.

A part of me quails, of course.  To begin to deal with those things that need dealing with is to push myself very far indeed outside of my comfort zone.  It is to begin to deal frankly and honestly with things that I would rather ignore.  It will probably result in some level of confrontation, maybe even some hostile words. And it requires changes - not just in the situation or the people involved but in myself as well.

So be it.  Because the reality of pretending that things will go away is that they never really do.

On Moving

The move is finally starting to become real.

Yesterday evening I was out in the backyard, rolling up the fencing around the garden and pulling out fence posts so that I can mow everything to a level before we go.  Our house is becoming a maze of boxes which seems to grow every day as additional units appear.  Things that we have not seen in four years emerge from the backs of closets and tops of shelves, a sort of slow moving treasure hunt.

Moving has always been sort of an odd thing to me, odder because of the fact that growing up we never moved at all.  I had no frame of reference before I went away to college.  Now, it seems that we have moved every 3-4 years since we got married.

It is not all bad of course - it is one way to ensure that everything you get is occasionally reviewed to see if you really need it.  The chances that you have a massive build up of stuff is minimal if you have to pack it and unpack it every so often.  And ultimately it is a very good reminder that in the end, we will all have to perform one more move - but in that case we will leave everything behind.

The packing will continue, the maze will grow higher as closets and shelves grow more empty - until there is suddenly a mass rush to get everything out the door.  The event  will be unsettling - moves always are - but there does come at least one moment where, standing in the doorway of the house or apartment you are vacating, you can look into the empty space and hear the sounds of the life and events that occurred while you were there.  That, ultimately, never goes away.

And then, of course, comes the unpacking....

Heroes

Who are your heroes?  Who are the ones you seek to emulate in your life?

This thought fully forced itself to my consciousness about a month ago.  It is not a subject that I had paid particular attention to in the past - sure, I want to be better and there are people that I admire, but I had never really given it a great deal of thought. Another mitigating thought - peculiar to Christians, I suppose - is that we are enjoined to emulate Christ.  This has always been somewhat of an intellectual challenge for me:  the thought of emulating the Son of God is somewhat daunting and somehow seems doomed to failure (which, ironically, is actually the point - and for another time).

But the thought was there:  who, if given the chance, would I seek to be more like in my life?

Here are my answers, in no particular order:

Miyamoto Musashi
Socrates
Winston Churchill
Francis Schaeffer
Masanobu Fukuoka
Gene Logsdon
Joel Salatin
Dietrich Bonhoeffer
Jan Sobieski
Martin Luther

A mixed list for sure.  Lots of names that are not commonly known (and a few that are).  Are there any similarities?    Some of them - Schaeffer, Bonhoffer, Luther - are men of faith who reached out to a world around them in the midst of transition.  Some of them - Fukuoka, Logsdon, Salatin - are farmers who emphasize small scale agriculture and returning to a balance with the land.  Some (Sobieski, Churchill) are military and political leaders who led their countries in times of great crisis.  And some (Musashi, Socrates) are simply my own favorites:  Musashi for his dedication to the martial arts and his encompassing of all things, Socrates because of his dedication to the truth and his ability to patiently teach it.

And with the (technical) exception of Socrates, all of them were writers.

What do my heroes tell me about myself?  I am not sure about that either.  They reflect the things in my life that I probably enjoy the most (agriculture, religion, history, theology, philosophy, nature, martial arts).  They are all men who are determined in their opinion and able to present them cogently to the world (something I secretly think I lack).  They are all - whether overt or quietly so - leaders to those around them.   And they are all writers.

Looking at them on the page, they are not a bad stable of men to seek to be more like.  I have their writings and history.  They are certainly knowable (to the point one can know someone through their writings).  They are easily accessible to me only a daily basis, should I wish to do so.  And ultimately, they all call me to a better more real version of myself.

These are my heroes, those I seek to emulate.  Who are yours?

A Visit With My Interest in Japanese

A very old friend wandered into my campsite this weekend as I sat, reading. 

It was my interest in Japanese.

"How is it going?" he said as his flipped out the legs of his hakama,  making crane wings as he sat down on the dead grass.

"Well" I said as I put down The Art of Japanese Sword Polishing.  "It has been a long time since I have seen you around."

He nodded.  "It has been a little...constricted for a number of years.  I was finally able to get out for a walk as you attended seminar. I faked out a number of other individuals and just moved on through.

We sat for a moment in the wind which, although seeming warm, bore with it the hint of cooling down before the evening was through.

"What brings you out?"  I asked, breaking a silence in which my interest just sat and breathed in the air.

"You, actually"  came the response.  "The  seminar has giving me a reason to think on things.  This other thinking you have also been doing in your life also has me thinking.  Have you thought about giving us another chance?"

I raised my eyebrows and looked at him.  My words stumbled in my mouth for a minute.  "I do not know.  It has been so long.  What has it been since we initially started - close to thirty years?"  At his half shrug, I continued. "That is a long time and a lot of water has gone under the bridge.  I am in a different place now."

"But you have toyed with the idea for years, have you not?" prodded my interest.  "It continues to linger at the edges of your mind.  You have never  truly given up on it as an interest.  And what do you read more often than not?  Japanese related books.  You have undertaken iaijutsu, which constantly deals in Japanese language and concepts."

"I am too old"  I said brusquely.  "Too old to begin this sort of thing."

My interest snorted.  "Too old?  Nonsense. Perhaps lacking the will, but hardly too old."

I sat and thought about it as he continued to stare off into the distance.  "You have a plan?"  I finally asked.

He nodded affirmatively.  "Of course.  We can start with actually dedicating some time to do it.  Every day.  You know what your studying weaknesses are.  Overcome them.  There are opportunities which surround you to use Japanese.  Use them."

"And then?"  I asked?

"Well, there is a text for your school of iaijutsu which has never been translated, you know. The sort of thing that someone with an interest in iaijustu, maturity, and a skill in Japanese might be able to do something with..."

I laughed.  "You think big."

He smiled in response as he got up and dusted off his knees.  "I always have.  We just have not communicated the way we ought."  He bowed once then turned and wandered back through the campground, his black-clad form cutting a path through the playing children and people with their bags of laundry until he disappeared around cedar tree lined fence leaving only the dust swirling in his wake, dust which formed characters which I thought I could almost recognize.

What and Who

Change is a powerful theme in my life now, something I had not grasped until this weekend.

I finished reading two books - both about change.  I continue my professional conversation - about change.  I went through and re-evaluated my goals - and what needed to change. 

Change is a powerful theme - but what do I need to change?

This is the question that has come to dominate my thinking since the weekend.  There seems to be so much that I could change about myself - not just the trivial things of what I look like or simple items like what to keep in my life the important things of character and behavior, relationships and what I spend my life on.  Which of these things need to be changed?  From what to what?  And in what order?

But a thought followed on after these thoughts, something that really should have preceded them: who do I want to be?

This is the key (or at least one of the keys) that has escaped me until now. 

Who do I want to be?  What do I want to be like? What character attributes do I wish to have?  Whom do I wish to emulate - and how?

If one has the answer to this, it seems, the other issues fall into place.  If I know who I am to be, then what I need to change becomes easy.  It is a bit like sculpture as I understand it:  if carving an angel, simply remove all pieces of stone which do not look like an angel.  This, of course, presumes that you know what you are going to carve in the beginning.

Not that this first step is easy.  It takes time and energy to determine what you wish to be like.  Ideally it takes a great deal of careful thought - after all, once the decision is made, it can be difficult to remake yourself.  But once made, the matter of what to change should become much easier, a simple exercise of carving away all that is about you that is not what you see in your mind.

If I can determine the who, the what should easily slide into place.

Computer Problems

Waiting to boot up,
My computer is too slow:
Aargh!  Late post today.

Accountability and Action

In a random discussion yesterday concerning the nature of change and response, I came to realization which has been surfacing in the back of my mind for some time know:  the relationship between accountability and action.

Accountability is a word that I hear thrown around a great deal, both at work and in other places.  Someone needs to be accountable.  You are accountable.  Another version (they are not the same in my opinion but are used synonymously) is that one is responsible e.g. accountable.

However, making one accountable without giving one the authority to make changes or take action means that accountability is less of an item which enables action and is more of an item which shifts blame.  Accountability becomes another concept for how failure will flow: if this fails, who was accountable?  It matters not that they the tools to execute or the authority to request, only that they failed.

Another area where accountability fails is that it is seldom linked positively to rewards.  If I am accountable, am I also not potentially in a position to reap rewards for successfully executing my tasks?  Too often the answer is no. To succeed is simply to do your task; to fail to ensure blame.

This, in turn, leads to individuals turning away from taking action.  If I am only to blamed, if there is no ability for me to execute or enforce that which I am accountable for, and if there is no reward for successfully completing my accountability, there is no incentive for anyone to take action.  Taking action can lead to nothing at all; certainly if I fail to take action, I am probably no worse off than if I took action if for no other reason than I have definitively ensured I will not mess up more completely than if I do nothing as all.

And thus the cycle of powerlessness:  I cannot change anything so I do nothing.  I do nothing (because doing nothing really does nothing for me) so I cannot change anything.  Anything I try to change, any choices I try to make are simply swept away as my actions become the equivalent of building sand castles in front of the ocean knowing that they will be swept away.

How do I change this dynamic?  I wish I knew.  In order to change it I would need to create or find a situation where accountability can result in success, where authority is given to execute and where reward and blame are equally possible as outcomes.

Where can one find such a situation?

Efforts Leading to Nowhere

There is nothing quite so destructive of effort as a long march in the same direction that results in nothing.

It is an interesting paradox:  we are told and come to believe that if we simply put 100% of our effort in we will reap the benefits of that effort.  Sure, it may seem like we are simply standing in place doing the same thing - but the promise is that somewhere, somehow, the reward is waiting.

And someday the realization  comes that it is not.

This year comes to look the same as last year - perhaps we are doing different versions of the same thing, but it seems like we are simply reshuffling a deck of cards and pulling out a different five and being told that this really is something new.    The issues remain the same, the arguments remain the same, the structure remains the same.

It surprises me somewhat that those in positions of authority do not see this for the very destructive and debilitating issue that it is.  People are the heart of any organization - be it a job or any sort of association, without people the work does not get done.  Yet too often those on top seem to cruise along in a sense of suspended belief, operating under the assumption that all is well indeed and that this year will be like the last. 

The reality seems to be that at this point the individual is confronted with two choices:  either accept the illusion that the effort is going to result in something different (which it seldom seems to) or make a conscious decision to strike out on their own - mentally if not physically - to reach a destination more of their choosing.

Neither of these ultimately benefits the leaders.  The first option ultimately results in individuals that are simply going through the motions of their tasks, doing the minimum possible to meet the expectations.  The second option ultimately results in individuals walking away from the job or association as they seek to pursue their opportunities elsewhere.

People want to change, grow, and feel that their effort is leading somewhere.  This is why, at the core, people have hobbies or interests that they continue to progress in - because they can see their effort resulting in a tangible improvement, which drives them to continue. 

It is when people are robbed of this opportunity that they choose to check out - mentally or by moving on.

Slouching Towards Change

I am ever so slowly pushing myself towards the precipice of change.

This is a thing that I am doing with some trepidation - after all, change can often go precisely the way you don't want it to - but with a hesitant sense of purpose.  I sense - and it has been suggested to me - that my ability to make the significant change I need to move to "the next level"- whatever that really means - is limited without some additional prodding.

How do I feel about this attempt to force change at a faster rate than I would undertake myself?  Excited and scared at the same time.  Excited, of course, because what I have tried to this point has not been the raging success that I have hoped for.  If I look over the last four years of my life I can see change, but it seems like tangential change:  change in activities which only indirectly result in a personal change.

Scared because, of course, once you open the can of change all sorts of things crawl out of it:  things that you hoped to resolve and all kinds of things that you either were not planning to deal with at all or perhaps worse, that you did not really intend to open up to the process at all.  One thing can lead to another and suddenly you discover yourself remembering and having to deal with an issue that is twenty years gone and (theoretically) forgotten.

It is at moment like these - when I turn away from pursuing the change or simply become lazy in doing what I need to do - that I ultimately fail because I ultimately let myself off the hook.  Faced with that which is too painful or too disruptive to consider I simply let it sink back to the bottom of my life.  The result?  The life which I maintain now - not bad by any stretch of the imagination but hardly the thing that I hope and need it be.

And so, trembling, I face the light - hoping not so much that I can find that which I need in short order but that I will at least have the courage to stand as the chest of my soul is opened and all that is inside raises its collective head to the unfamiliar light of day.

Wings

Swallows of the night
wheel and dart above me
as I plod forward.