Thanksgiving Day Proclamation

George Washington's 1789

Thanksgiving Proclamation

Whereas it is the duty of all nations to acknowledge the providence of Almighty God, to obey His will, to be grateful for His benefits, and humbly to implore His protection and favor; and Whereas both Houses of Congress have, by their joint committee, requested me to "recommend to the people of the United States a day of public thanksgiving and prayer, to be observed by acknowledging with grateful hearts the many and signal favors of Almighty God, especially by affording them an opportunity peaceably to establish a form of government for their safety and happiness:"

Now, therefore, I do recommend and assign Thursday, the 26th day of November next, to be devoted by the people of these States to the service of that great and glorious Being who is the beneficent author of all the good that was, that is, or that will be; that we may then all unite in rendering unto Him our sincere and humble thanks for His kind care and protection of the people of this country previous to their becoming a nation; for the signal and manifold mercies and the favorable interpositions of His providence in the course and conclusion of the late war; for the great degree of tranquility, union, and plenty which we have since enjoyed; for the peaceable and rational manner in which we have been enable to establish constitutions of government for our safety and happiness, and particularly the national one now lately instituted for the civil and religious liberty with which we are blessed, and the means we have of acquiring and diffusing useful knowledge; and, in general, for all the great and various favors which He has been pleased to confer upon us.

And also that we may then unite in most humbly offering our prayers and supplications to the great Lord and Ruler of Nations and beseech Him to pardon our national and other transgressions; to enable us all, whether in public or private stations, to perform our several and relative duties properly and punctually; to render our National Government a blessing to all the people by constantly being a Government of wise, just, and constitutional laws, discreetly and faithfully executed and obeyed; to protect and guide all sovereigns and nations (especially such as have shown kindness to us), and to bless them with good governments, peace, and concord; to promote the knowledge and practice of true religion and virtue, and the increase of science among them and us; and, generally to grant unto all mankind such a degree of temporal prosperity as He alone knows to be best.

Given under my hand, at the city of New York, the 3d day of October, A.D. 1789.

- http://www.wilstar.com/holidays/wash_thanks.html

On Cleaning A Hard Drive

This morning, upon having the luxury of a vacation and not going to work, I took the opportunity to organize my hard drive.

This is a task that I have sadly been lacking in.  My computer is giving me those handy shout-outs that say "Hey, you need more memory!" - and yet I have never found the time to sit down and actually go through the lengthy process of actually cleaning up the hard drive.

Why?  Because I am a pack-rat of my own materials, and going "electronic" solved absolutely nothing in that regard.  Whatever I create on the computer, I tend to keep - in fact, I think we still have old 3.5 inch disks from our Apple with things I created 20 years ago because I have this crazy idea that somehow, somewhere, they might be useful to me.

But the time came.  And the time was available.  So data transferring we went.

I still continue to get rid of very little, of course - instead, it all gets transferred on to other memory sticks, where it will at least take up less space until (once again) the technology changes and I am left with sticks of documents that I can no longer access.  And going through the actual process is a great deal like reading a diary of sorts:  as I organized and moved and transferred, I can see the various trains of thought I was following, the projects I was trying to set into place, the ideas that were set up on electronic paper yet never seemed to move beyond a certain stage.

They are all transferred now, the "current materials" on my hard drive, the other materials safely archived for a day which may never come - in a way, a reflection of so much the activity that fills our own lives, where that which was at one moment important loses criticality and eventually is transferred to the back of our memory or to our garage or closet on the off chance that someday it may become critical, although too often in our head we already know that it will never be.

It is just that we cannot bear to let go of it.

Being Heihachi

One of the great aspects of Seven Samurai by Akira Kurosawa is the way that he brought not just seven samurai together but seven different types.  Western culture often lumps all into a single type called "samurai" but Kurosawa brings together seven men who are samurai as a group but are different as individuals:  the student, the wise leader, the deadly swordsman, the brash outsider, the competent lieutenant, the battle friend, and the cheerful warrior.

When watching the movie, one wants to be the great ones:  Shimada Kambei, the wise leader, or even Kyuzo, the deadly swordsman who lives only for his art. These are the two that perhaps most completely demonstrate what the Western idea of a samurai is:  Tactical.  Learned.  Deadly.  Admired.

And then one realizes that one is not- and will never be.  One realizes, in fact, that one is Heihachi.

Heihachi is not as skillful a warrior as Kyuzo and not experienced as Shimada - in fact, of the 6 samurai that are not students, he is probably the least impressive for weapons skills.  When we first meet him, he is chopping wood to pay for his food.  A friendly fellow, he takes the time to build relationships with the villagers and among the samurai.  And he is the first killed after a raid, trying to rescue his friend.

But for all of this Heihachi is not any less than any other of the samurai.  He is not considered less - in fact, at his funeral Kambei notes how they will miss his cheerful spirit.  He fills a critical role in the interactions of the group, even as he seems to be one of the least impressive of the warriors.

Just because we cannot always be what we think we want does not mean that we do not bring value.  Sometimes that value is being Heihachi.

Our Weather

In the interests of something completely different, I thought I would talk about the weather we have had here this past week.  Because it has been remarkable to my way of thinking.

About a week and a half ago we were enjoying what I suppose we have come to see as fall weather:  mid-60's during the day, high 40's at night.  On Sunday night a week ago the "Polar Vortex" roared through  - where we are, there is nothing between us and Canada except flat.  Temperatures plunged to the high 20's at night and low 40's during the day.  We held that weather pattern until Wednesday, when the temperature started to climb but not a great deal - we only had a 15 degree variation one day between morning and daily high.

By Friday the weather had turned nicer, but with clouds.  We had sprinkles all day.  By Saturday it was a full on rainstorm which extended through the night - by Sunday morning we had received 3.84 inches of rain.  And then yesterday the sun burst out in glorious view with a high of 75.

A 50 degree swing in weather conditions within a week.  We have never had such interesting weather since we moved here.

November Moon

The sliver moon-set
dances low across the sky
as cloud tendrils sail.

Weather Change?

30 to 60
overnight?  Winter may be
messing with my mind.

Challenge, Work, Reward III

The second part of the concept is work.

Work is in theory the easy part - after all, I should have already defined what the challenges are.  It is just a matter of doing, right?

Well sort of.  It is not just a matter of doing - it is a matter of doing the right things that lead to actual progress.

This is often a challenge for me.  I can spend a great deal of time doing - in fact, my days are almost completely filled with doing, yet most of this doing leads to nowhere.  Yes, part of it is due to the fact that it is not based on challenges and goals but rather on tasks which are never ending and not completed, but some of it is also based on the fact that the work is not directed towards the achievement of the challenge.

Once the challenge has been defined - let us say, for example, cheese-making as part of my concept of Ichiryo Gusoku - what is the work required for making cheese?  Pretty easy actually - make cheese.  But there are at least some steps involved there:  What kind of cheese?  Do I have what I need - not just the milk but any other supplies.  And how much time will the cheese take (cheese is not time consuming but it is time intensive in that certain things must be done at certain times) and have I the time to do this?  Once that is defined and agreed to then the work because directed and purposeful.

Directed work will always be productive.  Undirected work will ultimately never produce what is desired.

Challenge, Work, Reward II

Challenge (noun):  A difficult task or problem; something that is difficult to do.

So this, as I was discussing yesterday, is the element that seems to missing from so much of my life at this moment.  In reviewing the definition, a couple of things immediately leap out at me:

1)  A difficult task or problem - that is not just enough.  Every day is filled with difficult tasks and problems.  The difference is that it has to be a difficult task or problem that is something that I care about and is motivational to me.  Continually performing the difficult without it being something that matters to you merely wears you down.  It may build up any number of capacities - strength, resistance, even skills - but it will wear away at the spirit.

2)  A task or problem - it has to be something concrete to solve, do, or achieve.  Ethereal concepts or things which are not something which can be acted on become frustrating in the extreme because there is nothing which can be acted upon to produce a result.

 Part of this, I suppose, is handled by how one defines things.  Am I defining things in the context of a challenge?  Or am I merely defining things as something that has to be done?  More fundamentally, have I gone through the list of things before me and defined them in terms of a challenge?  And if they are not definable as such, have I redefined them?

Have I even considered how I define the challenges that I care about for my own life?

The challenges are there.  Perhaps the problem lies not so much in them as it does in me to recognize and then define them as such.

Challenges, Work, Reward

I had an epiphany last week at work.

It was Friday and I was enmeshed in preparation for the upcoming quarterly meeting which I have been responsible for for the last 5 years.  As I was laying all the slides in order and preparing for the updated portion, I suddenly thought "This is no longer challenging".   And my mind went racing from there.

Work, I realized, was no longer a challenge.  Yes, there is still lots to do - but there is always lots to do.  It is just that in doing it, there is no longer any challenge to it.  There are no more meaningful mountains to climb, only a series of hills to navigate.

I sat and thought about this further.  What I realized is that this felt true of much of my life as well.  The challenge from most of the things that I do has left.  It is more of going through the motions of doing the things that I have done because I have done them, not because there is something more challenging about them.

As I have realized in times past, I excel at something like going to school.  It is a pretty simple process:  understand the challenge, do the work, get the reward (a good grade).  Transferred into my own real life it is the same thing:  understand the challenge (shoden certification, publish a book, play the harp, raise quail), do it, and get the reward (certificate achieved, book published, music played, quail in house).

And then what?

Work is notorious for this, I suppose:  without an adequate challenge and reward system no company will achieve great success (because who can keep generating high level enthusiasm for the challenge without the corresponding reward).  But I had never before grasped that this is one of the elements of my own personal life as well:  after having done a thing gotten the immediate reward and not seeing the next challenge from it, interest wanes.

Another item related to this:  the challenge and reward has to be almost completely within one's control and ability to achieve.  Grades are great for this, of course:  do the work and get the A.  And something like physical activity can be like this too - in Highland Athletics, my performance is a direct output of my effort put in.  But for some many other things - even such as work - the reward is determined by things outside of my control, thus lessening the ability to re-engage when I find out that the challenge has (once again) not resulted in the outcome that seemed to be promised.

What to do?  That's the real issue, is it not?  If I know that if I am not challenged I do not do my best and if I know that I need the challenge/work/reward system to do my best and if I know that I need to angle myself towards those rewards that are as much in my control as possible (so they can be achieved), how do I restructure my life to find them?

The first step - the specially big one - is to simply realize and admit that this is the case.  I need challenges.  I need them defined as such.  And if I cannot find them where I currently am, I need to look elsewhere.

Clouds and Enthusiasm

I think it is safe to say that I am trying to find my way of a cloud of depression again.

My enthusiasm for doing almost anything at this point has evaporated. Things that I previously enjoyed seem gray to me now, something that I have to work up to doing. The thought of doing almost anything I used to enjoy seems to be a burden now, something I really have to work up to do.

I wonder if it is simply an extension of the way my life seems to working through other things currently:  a long sense of endurance, of doing without the belief that anything will get any better, rather than a sense that I am improving or making progress in anything.  When one is doing something because one has to and there is no realization that anything is getting better or one is getting better at it, there seems to be a significant loss of enthusiasm.

It is not a question of recognizing the issue.  It is a question of what to do with the issue.

How does one generate enthusiasm for anything?  This seems to be the core question.  How does one take where one is, look to the land of where one wants to be, and then find the fuel to take one there?

It has to be something internal.  I get that.  Trying to rely on outside circumstances or outside people to get the drive you need to succeed in anything will never work.  It has to come from you to weather the times when circumstances are against you or people are non-supportive or non-responsive.

The question is, where does one find it?

Sick?

I woke up this morning to my body finally having its way with me.

Oh, I know it has been coming. I have received hints of this for three days running.  The tiredness of course, but I always seem to be tired.  The lack of interest and energy in doing anything but again, that has become something of a course du jour of late.  But last night I just had enough go to eat dinner and do the dishes before I went to bed.  That should have been the sign.

And so it was.  I woke up this morning, made a go of praying, and then realized that my body was simply done for the day.  I officially called in sick.

On the one hand it is a little surprising to me - after all, I think this is the first sick day I may have taken in two or three years.  My health is generally pretty good, a blessing I probably do not appreciate as much as I should.

The part that concerned me a little bit as I considered it further (from the warm Fortress of Solitude that was my bed) is that this is way I seem to feel all the time now:  Run down.  Tired.  Exhausted.  If I try to combat this alone with more sleep and better eating it never really seems to do the trick.  Why?  Because these do not seem to cut into the major areas that this is arising from.

I am grasping at straws at this moment, my thoughts half formed.  The sickness is the logic outcome of exhaustion and some level of poor nutrition, that I understand.  But (putting my investigation hat on)  what is the root cause of this?  Why am I feeling this way all the time?

Questions to ponder, I suppose.  For now, it will be a retreat to a chair with a large cup of tea and a book to sit and recover.

Winter Comes

Winter is here.

It arrived yesterday, blowing down through the Plains as the advance runner of a mass of cold air.  At 0500 it was 60 F and not windy; 1 hour later the temperature was steady dropping and the wind was up.   It continued to drop all day until, this morning, it is almost 50 degrees colder than it was on Saturday during the day. 36 F now, and 32 F tomorrow night.  30 F low on Sunday with highs in the 50s at best.

And so the wind down happened this weekend.  Rabbits and quail were safely relocated over the weekend to their winter quarters in the garage.  Outside furniture and BBQ were moved inside as well so the back porch is empty except for the lone dog igloo that Syrah the Mighty disdains to use but I keep in case it gets so bad she decides she needs shelter.

The desultory winter garden was planted as well, onions and garlic this year.  I have to seriously rethink my garden and wanted to make a fresh start of it in the spring.  The okra plants are there with the last little remaining okra as is the jalapeno pepper plant with its bounty; I suspect they will all be gone and withering by Friday.

The heater is ready to be fired up.  Larger quantities of coffee are being generated in the morning.  Running in the morning is prepared with heavy clothing to go out in.  And the wardrobe has completely changed to prepare for the inevitable fact that the heater cannot keep up at work.

Winter is here.

On Someone Else

"If you've signed up to be approved by, selected by, promoted by or otherwise chosen by someone who's not going to respond to your efforts, it's not a smart choice." - Seth Godin

When i read this comment yesterday I was almost speechless from the profound nature of it.  It was in the middle of what rapidly seems to be becoming a typical day for me:  a steady flow of people all with questions or needs, the hint that the day's activities are not going nearly as cleanly to plan as has been expected, and the hovering over my head of the fact that I am coming to realize that the instability I am feeling at work is not going to result in any sort of advancement not matter how much effort I put into it.  

And then, this.

Ironically this is the thing that much of the American business model (maybe the global business model - who knows?) is built on: the idea that we put our efforts out in hopes that someone is going to recognize them and reward them.  Turns out we - or at least I - have a tendency to do this in my personal relationships as well:  make myself dependent on what others will think or do in order to make myself feel better or move the relationship forward.  I even have a tendency to do this in my activities, taking the action and hoping that someone will recognize it and reward it then.

But to Godin's point, it is not a smart choice.  Said more succinctly, it is a stupid choice?

Why?  Not because it makes you dependent on another person (I should think that is obvious) but even more so that it keeps you laboring under a delusion: the delusion that some else is going to make you successful.  Your success - in anything - becomes not an output of your own effort and ability and time but rather the output of someone noticing, approving, selecting, promoting and choosing you.  If they do not - well, that is unfortunate, but please continue to work as hard as you have been and perhaps beg a little more - and someone may notice you then.

The solution?  Approve, select, promote and choose yourself.  Easy to write, hard to do.  But if I am truly honest, is it any more difficult than feeling the way I some often do - run down, ignored, trapped in my inability to get anyone in a position to make an impact to notice me.

Perhaps better if I go make my impact - and my promotion or choosing - myself.

End of Season

So the Highland Games season officially ended for me on Saturday.  Overall I was happy with my results -afte.r an abysmal no height in Weight Above Bar (Came in at 9' and missed, should have come in 8') I went on to get three Personal Records:  Braemar Stone (20'7"), Heavy Weight for Distance (18'4"), and Light Hammer (51' 5.5").  Out of seven total events, that is not too bad.

I ended the year by exceeding all nine event Personal Records that I started with in 2014 - in some cases, more than once.  Just for fun I looked back at 2011:  For example, in 2011 at my first games my Heavy Weight for Distance was 9'5", my Light Hammer was 41' 10", and my Weight Above Bar was 8' (I hit 10' this year).  That reaches one of my goals for the year and makes me feel like - overall - I am making progress in this sport.

It also makes me feel surprisingly good about myself in the sense that I can legitimately claim the title of "Athlete".  This is not something that I had anticipated happening at my age - at all, actually.  But here I am, actually doing a sport and even making progress in it.  I am realistic in the assessment that I will probably never be truly competitive in the sport, but since this has never been a barrier for me to do anything else, there is not reason that I should start no.

I have had a lot of side benefits as well:  meeting a lot of really great people whom I now count as my friends, getting to go all over the State to compete (goal for next year is to try one game outside of this State), and overall improving my health:  what's not to like about that?

What next?  Off season, of course.

Which means training for next season starts today.

Baxter's Folly

Foolish Baxter thought:
"Kill the man, kill the spirit":
but, Incandescence.

Career Mire

I'm fighting the middle age career blues again.

It reached its height yesterday when, in seeing a document, I realized that I am done.  My ability to go forward seems pretty much to have come to a halt.  Bottom line:  it appears that my current position - the title I have held for 12 years - is the only one I will ever have.

Disappointing?  Sure.  To suddenly realize that your ability to move forward in the thing that eats 45+ hours of your week is limited to cost of living increases for the rest of career is depressing.  The fact that you will spend the rest of your career bringing other people into systems, training them up, and then having them both command you and take the credit for the work you execute creates no incentive to really try harder.

I calculated again last night.  I have 16.5 years into this industry.  Almost too late - in fact maybe too late - to make a career change, which I have sort of already acknowledged internally.  That said, the fact that my ability to do anything else other than what I am makes me crumble in despair.

Is this it?  Surrender to the commute to a place (could be any place, at this point) that will keep me where I am for the next 20 to 25 years with essentially no hope?

How disappointing that the weather outside - cold, wet windy - matches the issues within my own soul.

Again II

Okay, so I am feeling slightly better today.  Sleep, as I have noted in the past, helps a lot.  So does Iaijutsu for the evening.

Not that anything wildly changed yesterday.  Getting to work was exactly the way the way that the morning felt:  almost from the time I walked in the door I found myself the center of need:  documents to sign, opinions to be given, meetings to go to, things to review.  All urgent, all needing to be done now, all with the sense of "I am here for no other reason than to serve you" splattered across the day.

It just leads one to walk with downcast shoulders and eyes.  Yes, I allowed myself to get pulled in to a belief that things were going to be different. But reality came screaming back at me with a vengeance.

This is the point at which I do not know what else to do.

The wise point, I assume, is to "change my attitude".  That is what I should do, I suppose. Change my latitude.  Make my life about "my decision", not about circumstances.

I should, I suppose. So why do I feel like this whole thing is an exercise in pointlessness?

Again

That crushing moment when you realize you have been disappointed.  Again.

You let yourself wander into this.  You allowed yourself to believe - again - that this time things would be different.  There would be changes.  Implied promises would be kept.

And you acted on those beliefs.  You turned your efforts as if the thing was already done.

And patiently waited.  For nothing to happen.

And then comes the moment, the moment when you realize that you have allowed yourself to believe one more time.  Allowed yourself to pretend that this time things would work out.  No-one else seems surprised by this or to question this.

And so you shrug, lift your shoulders and promise yourself that you will not fail prey to your wishful beliefs again.

Until the next time it happens...

On Rocky and Dying

On this day my friend Rocky lies dying in a hospital.

The incongruity of this struck me last night as I reviewed the various websites last night and found that a young woman in Oregon, whose picture I had happened to see two weeks ago on a People magazine, had decided to end her life under Oregon's Suicide Law.

I want to be careful as I write this:  I have never had to face a death sentence as cancer.  I have never had to evaluate whether living longer is worth the pain.  I can discuss the decision on moral grounds only but that is not my aim today.  The point of this consideration is not a condemnation; rather it is an observation.

My friend Rocky found out that he had a relapse of cancer in 2012.  He chose to fight - and he chose to share his struggle.  For almost 2 years he has written about his ongoing struggle.  He has been remarkable honest in his struggles and reflections - sometimes painfully so.  Rocky is the real deal:  a man facing death in the face and telling all what he sees there.

What has come out of it is a series of writings which has helped a lot of people, including myself.  Reflections on living and dying.  Reflections on how it is important to spend your time wisely now on things that matter with people that you care about because (really) we do not know how much time we have.  The gift of seeing marriage as it was actually meant to function, when that "until death do we part" becomes a reality.  And for me, even a little advice on how be better at Highland Games.

Ultimately, what Rocky has done is to take his situation and make it a teaching experience.  The impact of his life will be far beyond what his uncooperative body had become.  It is ingrained on the hearts and in the characters of all that have read him and know him.   Rocky will continue to live - not as a internet picture with a catchy phrase to be lost on Instagram in a month but as a real example of how to live even in the process of dying.

There will be no internet extravaganza for Rocky this week.  But there will be the quiet morning of those whose lives he has touched - and the determination to take to what he has given us with his dying and carry it forward.

All Hallow's Eve

Autumn morning rain
washes the dust of Summer
to the Stream of Then.

Nanowrimo 2014

So National Novel Writing Month (Nanowrimo) is almost upon us. The question is, will I do this year or not?

I ask because I attempted it last year but fell off the band wagon pretty quickly - other things came up and I simply was not really committed to what I was writing.  This year is a little different already.

So the question is, am I going to do it?

The one year I successfully completed it - 2012 - I went in with a definitive idea in mind that sustained me through the struggle of generating 1567 words a day (it is not as hard as you think, but it is an endurance race).  This year, I find myself 2 days before I would start writing without the foggiest idea in the world what I would write about.

But I am wondering if this, too, is not a different aspect for writing.

The reality is that I have ideas rattling around in my head - lots of them, actually.  Most of them I simply self censor because they're not "good enough" or actually ready for prime time.

But what if I simply took one out and started watching where it went.

It is not that I will write The Great American Novel - I get that.  But it is interesting to wonder what I could write if I just let the story start telling itself.  Because the remarkable thing I have found about writing is that if I will simply start writing, the characters will begin to fill the story in themselves, sometimes so much so that I scarcely recognize the work as something I typed.

So maybe this year the question is not so much "Will I do Nanowrimo?" as much as it is "Where will Nanwrimo lead?"

Practice and Real

Last night I pulled out my shinken  to practice.

I have been off and on with Iaijutsu class over the last month due to family related activities.  I have also, let us be honest, been in a bit of a slump.  It is a slump which I have dealt with in the past in many of my activities, the slump of having hit a plateau.

It is hard.  I like to learn new things and I grapple with the fact that part of doing is simply getting better at the things one has learned rather than always learning new things.  And this means practicing and re-practicing the things one has learned.

I do not like practice (never really have honestly) so this makes one level of frustration for me (and no-one is more surprised than I that I have stuck with this as long as I have).  The second level that makes it difficult for me is that I am constantly practicing alone.  That may be okay for many activities; it is harder for an activity where the intent (theoretically) is to engage with someone else.

So I have not been as diligent of late as I should have been but I have been trying, practicing with my bokken with cuts in the morning and kata in the evening.  But I was feeling low and tired and rushed last night, so I pulled out my shinken last night.

And fell in love all over again.

My shinken is a standard katana length (29 inches, 10 inch tsuka or hilt) and is very much lighter than my bokken - so much so, in fact, that it almost flipped out of my hand as I practiced.  The lightness of the sword gave me speed, speed I feel I am missing so much in my practice.  It moved and danced in my hand with a feeling of lightness, not the usual slowness I feel when I am practicing.  For a 30 minute period I felt like a swordsman, not just a guy out practicing.

When I went back in - feeling far more energized and rededicated to my art - I realized something I have forgotten:  practice is good, but we do not practice for the sake of practice.  We practice to perform, be it with our skills or our swords.  If we forget this, only living forever in a state of getting ready, we deny ourselves the great joy of occasionally looking up and realizing we are doing this for an actual purpose, not just for the sake of doing.

Feeling down or bored with something you used to love to do?  Do it - not for practice but for real, even if it is only displayed for yourself.  Remind yourself why you started in the first place.

Thinking on Responsibility

I am re-reading Churchill on Leadership by Steven F. Hayward.  I had originally just grabbed it off the shelf again because I felt like I needed a short book to read in the mornings; what I have found is a reminder to myself precisely at the time that I needed it.

One of Churchill's great beliefs was that being given responsibility without power was one of the most unsuccessful and least desirable things that could happen to him - or any individual:

"What you have no right to do is to ask me to bear responsibilities without the power of effective action."

"Few sensations are more painful than responsibility without power."

"My one fatal mistake was trying to achieve a great enterprise without having the plenary authority which could have to easily carried it to success."

"Someone has to take responsibility.  I will."

I compare this to my own work situation - certainly most of my work life but more specifically the time I have spent at my current job over the last 5.5 years.  What I realize - and I think is true of many if not most businesses - is that Churchill's complaint is a common one:  being given responsibility with authority or the power to execute.

Being given responsibility can be a wonderful thing.  It should be a sign of increasing skill and knowledge or a recognition of trust in one's abilities.  But when the responsibility is transferred without any authority to carry out the responsibility the responsibility becomes nothing more in reality than a burden, a weight given by others with the intent to affix blame when the thing is not accomplished.

It is being given the responsibility of the budget without any control of the spending.  It is being given responsibility for a project without any input into the project other than "Finish it".  It is being charged with the building of a relationship without any ability to speak directly with the person involved.

It is being asked to do that which you cannot control yet be responsible for the results.

What to do? I realized (as I wrote this) that there really is only one solution:  being clear up front.  Specifically asking "What is my authority to accomplish this?" - and if not getting the response that works (i.e. "Total") simply stating "I cannot take responsibility for this project.  I have no ability to requisition the resources, manage priorities, or drive the matter to conclusion meaningfully.  Otherwise you are simply setting me up for failure."

Harsh words?  Probably - but it will probably provoke a discussion, a discussion perhaps some people have not had in a while - if ever:  what is the nature of giving responsibility?

A Prayer for Rocky

As some of you know, my friend Rocky is dying from cancer.  He runs a small blog at http://rocosis1.blogspot.com/ where he has spent the last year and a half documenting his fight and his journey towards terminal velocity i.e. death.

It strikes me as odd:  I did not know Rocky before almost a year ago this month.  I have never known him with cancer.  I have never known the sound of his voice (He lost his voice a while ago) or seen him throw.  I have never known him as anything other than as he is now.

But what a knowing that has been.  He has been remarkably (remarkably!) open about his fight with cancer and his inevitable oncoming death.  In a way it is an online journal about dying:  not the dying we see in movies or the death that we so often come to know in our society - a sort of a quiet thing that happens to the side and we only know once it has happened.  Instead it has been open and available: the level of pain, the difficulty getting a trach tube in, the physical issues as Baxter (he has named the tumor) continues to grow.

He was admitted to Hospice last night. I am sure that he did not go willingly but necessarily.  He has beat the doctor's assessment by at least 6 months.  He has hoped to make it another 4 to February, to see the birth of his second grandchild.

I only have two requests for you today:

1)  Whatever is facing you, whatever you have to deal with, I can assure you that (for 99% of you) it is not nearly as bad as battling cancer and facing your own death.  Look at today with a sense of proprtionality.

2)  If you can (and if you are a praying person) spare a prayer for Rocky and his family.

Life is far more fleeting than we possibly imagine.  Embrace today.

Cage Door

And then the moment comes when the cage door swings into place.

Suddenly one realizes that the course of the next years - perhaps really the last few years as well - has been set.  The creeping things that have edging up on one's life suddenly overtake one in one great overwhelming wave.  The die seems cast.

The illusion - and of now it appears to be an illusion - of choice and options seems stripped away.  Life - at least one's own life - seems revealed for what it really is:  a pre-programmed series of activities that leaves little to choice or chance.

Taxi to commute.  Commute to work. Work to commute.  Commute to dinner and the chores that need to be done.  And then comes the choice:  do I get the sleep that I need, or do something that I want to?  One cannot go forever without sleep.

The parts of life - one's own parts of life - get further and further wedged into the seconds and minutes that are available until, despondent, one is sorely tempted to start giving them up - after all, irregular practice does not lead to improvement and in fact just depresses one further.

Leaving what?  A rut.  A rut of work and responsibilities.

And then in a blinding flash, one understands why middle age crises happen.  Because others must come to the same realization, the same inward shudder as the door closes when there still seems to be so much of life left but it is seems beyond the reach.  The inward shudder, followed by the sense of depression, that comes when one feel's that life is nothing more than a shell of "musts" and "have to".

The sense that life is fleeting by while one sits in traffic, going to and from but never really doing.

Snowball's Searching

The Mighty Snowball

roots in summer's lost garden:

What is he seeking?

Autumn Moon

The Morning Breeze blows
the Sliver of White Midnight
through the Green Oak Leaves.

Breathless

Breathless.
Always rushing.
Always about doing something.

Breathless.
Always busy.
Always fifteen things that needs doing.

Breathless.
"I need to be here."
"Can you stop and do this?"

Breathless.
Wondering if ever
you can get to the truly important.

Breathless.
Taking a moment
to stop and breathe.

Turning a Caber

The air is warm and the sun beats down as I settle the caber against my shoulder.

It is our local city games and we are throwing the challenge caber, a 12 foot 65-75 pound blue plug of wood.  If you turn the caber - get it completely end over end- you can advance to the next level.  This is my great challenge - in three years and 20 plus games, I have never legitimately turned a caber.

I keep working my way my way down the shaft of the caber, fingers locked together and the caber standing almost straight upright.  My head is locking it into my neck and my legs are out to the side as I bend lower and lower.  The caber shifts back and forth with the breeze or my actions and I have to wait and settle it back into position.

Finally I get to the near the bottom.  Proper technique is to get your hands to the bottom, give a short lift with your head and shoulder, and scoop your hands under the base.  I cheat this a little bit:  I pull up and then get my hands in position.  Fortunately the caber is light enough and forgiving enough that I can get away with it.  My hands are not locked but are on the bottom.  Close enough.

I pull up and stand up, remembering to mash it into my shoulder the way I was told to do.  The base of the caber is now up at waist level, the head probably 15 feet in the air.  The Athletic Director who is announcing has said something and the crowd  is making some noise but it is all background noise to me.  My world is now a blue piece of wood I have to make fly.

I start running forward.  There is no defined distance except that you have to demonstrate forward motion.  I cannot tell how far I have run but I do not think it is far.  I stop.  The caber starts to fall forward.  I take my hands and pull them up to my crown as the caber head falls.  The end of the caber rises and the head hits the ground.

And I start yelling.

All of my frustration for three years of trying, all of the times I said I could not or believed I could not, all of the times circumstances were against me when they should not have been - all of this I channel into my yell, willing the caber over with my sonic emotions.

And over it goes, making a small "poof" of dust as it hits.

The crowd breaks out into cheers.  My fellow athletes - especially the ones who know how I have struggled with this - cheer.  I am jumping up and down, screaming like a madman.  And not caring.

Today I turned my first caber.

Today was a very good day.

Autumn Quail

White and brown puff balls
burrow into hay and dirt,
chirping at bug snacks.

Closing Doors

There is nothing quite as hollow sounding as the sound of a door closing in life.

We go through multiple door closings of course, be they with friends or interests or careers.  Life moves on, we move on.  Things change.  This is simply a part of life that we acknowledge.  And as a part of that flow of life, doors close.

They are doors of different appearances, leading different places.  At one time they may have ushered us to a friendship that was deep and abiding and seemed as if it could go on forever; at another one may have been that interest that consumed our lives.  The career we thought we wanted was behind this door, while over here was that one thing that we were convinced would revolutionize our lives and our understanding of ourselves.

And now we are going through, closing them behind us.

They may not have been bad.  They may have had their purpose at the time.  The door closing may not have even been our idea.  But the time has come - after all, a hallway with nothing but open doors makes it confusing to understand what doors we should continue to go through and doors which no longer serve their purpose let heat and light leak out for no purpose.

We pull the handle.  The door comes to the sill - maybe we have to pull a little bit harder because humidity has made the door swell or maybe it closes too quickly versus the strength we put into it.  Either way a hollow "thuk" sounds as it closes.

It may have been for the best of reasons.  It may be necessary.  But there is still nothing quite as sad as the sound of a door closing.

Uncertainty

Uncertainty is the killer.

It is one thing to definitively know what the course is.  It is another thing to waver between the two, never really sure which direction one is advancing in.  It is disheartening because one never really has the sense of making progress; instead, one hovers inside of a sort of limbo bubble, drifting here and there as the bubble bounces from one random event to the other.

Decision is different.  Decisions is cut and dried, course set, moving fully speed ahead.  To decide is to have the course mapped out and be moving ahead.  To decide is to be done and moving on.

Uncertainty is something else.  The longer it goes  on, the more one is paralyzed in place.  Potential plans are all put on hold because no plans can be made.  The stress and discomfort levels rise because there is no clear path, only the possibility of two or more paths which are theoretical, not actual.  There is no forward progress, because no true progress can be made in the absence of a decision.

What to do?  Decide, of course - except if you cannot.  Then your only choice is to manage the not knowing - until the uncertainty is resolved.

Autumn Front

Summer a memory
as the bright dawn stars twinkle
in the cool dark breeze.

All Knowledge

Sometimes I wish we had access to all the knowledge we needed.

It is difficult working in a vacuum, especially when we know that the decisions we make every day have impacts not just on ourselves, but on those around us and even sometimes those we do not know.  We try to come up with the best actions, of course - but I too often find that my even best actions do not work out the way that I had intended.

"You can chose your actions but you cannot choose the consequences of your actions" is attributed to Ayn Rand and usually in the negative sense of decisions - but it is just as true for the good that we try to do as well.   Our best thoughts sometimes work no better than if we had never planned at all.

Would more knowledge help?  The back of my head tells me that it would.  Somehow, it tries to convince me, if only we knew more, we could make informed choices do things that would incline towards better results.  If only I knew all, I convince myself, I would take the best actions.

That is a fool's notion, of course, because that is predicated on the fact that having all knowledge is the same as knowing the future, which none of us can do.  "Always in motion is the future, difficult to see" said Yoda - and it is true.  We act based on the future we see, only to discover that the actions and decisions of others make the future we thought we saw very different.

Is there a solution?  Not really - except, if possible, to abandon the belief that we need all knowledge to act or decide.  Rather, we need to simply accept that we will do the best with what we have and make do with that.

Precisely when did the speed of life increase?

Once upon a time it felt like life was a slow journey.  School lasted forever, summers perhaps not quite as quickly but for a while.  Activities existed, but there always seemed to be sufficient time to do them as well as the things that had to be done.  Life was, well, fun.

Even later - through college and into the beginning of work - there was still a sense that there was time. There was more to do, but then there was still the time to do things that were fun and important and felt like it something I did because I wanted to for no good reason.

But then life began to pick up speed.

It starts with work.  Work begins to consume more and more of your time and energy.  You like to convince yourself that in fact you are building a career but in fact it just feels like you are working more.  And it is not just time - it is mental energy and emotional energy spent trying to make things work.  Your commute extends but you convince yourself it is not that bad.

If you have children, you have the additional critical mass of their activities as well.  You are helping them to develop in their lives - after all, doing well in school and doing activities is important - but this takes more time too.  Time that comes from somewhere.

And then one day you realize that you are doing almost nothing which you is strictly for you.  Life has become a blur of moving from place to place, rushing from drop off to work to pick up to another activity to home for a quick dinner and perhaps a little time for yourself.  Life has become a speeding car through which you occasionally see the blur of the scenery.

Which brings up this legitimate question:  If you have reached this level of speed, how do you slow it back down?

Apology and A Request

Friends, I beg your forbearance once again.

Life is happening again, in a way that I had not quite anticipated (it seems to be a great deal like that).  I have a decision to make - yes, I know that sounds a little cryptic (and it is meant to at this stage).  It is certainly not a bad thing,  

But it is a thing.  And it needs to be carefully considered.

And so today will be less than my usual (wishfully thoughtful, thought the writer) piece.  I would like to believe an apology, but almost a bit of an excuse I guess.  My apologies.  Hopefully things will begin to clear and I can turn my attention back to thinking tomorrow.

And if you have a prayer or a good thought, I would happily accept that as well.

Ways to Know That A Decision is Probably Not The Right One:

Ways to Know That A Decision is Probably Not The Right One:

1)  Your stomach ties up in a knot whenever you think about one particular outcome.

2)  You start avoiding people or situations that might cause you to have to make the decision.

3)  Your vision becomes narrowed from your complete life to the focus of that decision to the point that you cannot function.

4)  Every conversation somehow involves the decision and potential outcomes.

5)  Your mind actually starts bringing to mind reasons not to make the decision.

6)  By making the decision you will ignore some very common good sense.

7)  You are making the decision for one particular reason, not for a whole series of particular reasons.

8)  People you respect tell you it is not the best outcome.

9)  You have no peace about it.

10)  You actually think that it may not be the right decision.

Technical Difficulties

Today's extremely short memo is brought you by the "My Virtual Memory is completely full" and "My hard drive is really full too".  We'll be talking with our sponsors and get back to you soon...

Change in Perspective

Funny how perspectives can change in an instant.

One phone call, one e-mail, one conversation - and then the entire frame of reference shifts.

I guess it should not surprise me that this is the case - after all, I have been around long enough to know that such things can occur.  Good heavens, such things have actually occurred to me from time to time:  learning you will have a child.  Learning that your job has suddenly disappeared.

I guess where the surprise comes in is that more and more, it happens in the midst of life.  Not when you are expecting it or even when you think of things as being at a crossroads but simply occurring where we are, meandering through daily life.  The perspective changes, and suddenly everything that you have been considering or planning with goes completely to the winds.

In a way I suppose this is good - it means that we are constantly being brought back to what is truly important, not what we think is important.  This is often a problem for me - I let my life become too much about me and my life and what is going on in my head and not the bigger picture of what is going on in the lives of others - sometimes that is as much or more important as what is going on in mine, although I am often unwilling to acknowledge it.

But the one thing that must happen for the change in perspective to really work is that I must acknowledge it for what it is - not a minor interruption or a passing idea but a true change, that turn in the road before and after which nothing is completely the same.  To do anything less is deprive the change of what it is really saying and to then continue to operate in a world that is no longer completely true.

Perspectives can change instantly.  But we are the ones responsible for taking that change and incorporating it into our lives.

Apologies

I am sorry.

I feel I have not serviced the blog the way that I should be doing so.  I can only beg your indulgence from  the reality of daily living.

Life seems to have conspired to completely eat most of my available time.

School and activities seem to have taken over our lives.  Suddenly we have become "Them", those families that always seem to be everywhere else but at home and anywhere else but spending time together as a true family unit.  Instead we find ourselves rushing out the door early to drop one child off and coming home late after picking another child up.  Activities seem to be reduced to the radius of activities which are directly or indirectly done for Na Clann.  Time has become wedged into a small section in the morning and a smaller section at night.

This is not really the life I was hoping for, obviously.

Except.  Except that this is life as it really happens.  Except that life really does consist of the spaces between the things we thought we wanted to accomplish.  Except that every activity done, every volunteering second spent, every game or competition watched, is another item that goes into the memory banks and into the concept of others believing in you.  This stays with you long after the moment of my desire has come and gone.

So forgive me if I seem a little bit distracted and rushed and writing at less than my full capacity.  It is just that my time - and mind - are elsewhere being utilized, hopefully for the greater good.

Last Licks of Summer

Belying cloud cover,
The last "Huzzah" of summer:
hot and humid run.

Decisions

Standing on sword's edge
I look down, as mirror-bright
the blade says "Decide".

Reorganizational Chaos

So one of the most chaotic and disruptive thing any company can do is a reorganization.  I am always surprised by the fact that companies do not understand this.

In my experience and those I know, reorganizations tend to happen in one of two ways.  In the first version, the reorganization is lightning quick.  Everyone shows up and suddenly you are reporting to someone else.  Maybe you know who it is.  Maybe you do not.  And in some cases, the person to whom you are now reporting may know precisely nothing about what it is you actually do.

In the other version, the reorganization is pretty much an open secret.  Everyone knows it is coming, yet for some reason it is delayed  or held back, sometimes for days or weeks.  Not everyone may know where they are going and so a certain concern permeates the air as individuals wait, knowing that something is coming but not know what it will be.

In either of these versions, the results are the same:  Chaos.  Concern.  Often there is no clear reason for why the reorganization is occurring - in some extreme cases, it is announced but the full details of it are not so people know that something is changing even as they have no idea what it is.

People like communication.  They like to understand.  They like to know what is coming - maybe they cannot change it, but at least they can prepare for it.  And people certainly do not like the instability or lack of concern that is demonstrated when these sorts of things occur.  They begin to worry -first about the company's stability, and then most certainly about their own futures.

Why is it then that companies never seem to understand this?

Picking Cabers

One of the surprisingly great things about Highland Athletics is simply what you can learn about yourself in the course of throwing things.

Yesterday, for example, I managed to get three perfect picks on the challenge caber.  I do not believe I have ever had three legitimate picks on any caber that in which I got it to the point of throwing, even if I failed to have a full turn.  In the course of these picks everything went right:  the caber was balanced, I got low, and I scooped it from the bottom.  All of this with an actual crowd cheering for me.

The focus is what surprised me:  that in the midst of sun, cheering, and my general concerns about lifting the caber in the first place (the event I struggle the most with) I was able to start the first part of the process.

I have a great deal of work still to do, of course, such as overcoming that initial moment of realizing that I have picked the caber and what the heck do I do next and remembering the timing of the caber (you have to pull it sooner than you think you do).  But if I look back to three years ago when I first threw a caber at this venue - my very first games - and see the improvement over time - I can be nothing but amazed at my generally un-athletic self.  I can see improvement.  And it is measurable.

And I remind myself once again that I can do far more than I think I am capable of - if only I can focus.

Friday Morning

So I should already be at work this morning.

I should have already been up, showered, and rushing around to get out the door.  I should - right now - probably be sitting in traffic, cursing my commute and hoping that it will go more quickly.

I am not, of course.

After helping with Nighean Gheal's  band last night and being informed that I had no child drop-off responsibilities this morning, I decided that I was not really in that much of a hurry after all.

So instead I got up at the unheard of hour of 0645 on a work day.  I read.  I did my calisthenics.  I drank coffee and fed the animals.  Right now the sun is crossing my fingers as it rises over my typing - something I almost never experience.

I am relaxed - so relaxed I can contemplate the fact that I really should be doing something else yet feeling no particular drive to do it.  In fact, my stress level is almost nil for the same amount of sleep which, were it yesterday, made me a stress ball.

Work calls, of course.  The e-mails are there.  The questions are there.  And over the horizon, the larger questions of life are looming.

That is okay.  For one morning, I can simply take a little time and be, instead of be doing.

Quail in the Garden

Among the okra
brown and white feathered heads bob,
finding a late snack.

Doing the Basics Well

Along with commitment, I was reminded that I need to focus on doing the basics well.  This is hard for me - much hard than one might think.

Why?  It is not for the reason that you might think, that somehow the basics are too difficult (they are not) or too hard (again, they are not).  It is because I get easily bored and I look to more knowledge as the way to be admired and be great, rather than doing the basics well.

1) Bored:  I get bored easily.  Or maybe said differently, I have a short attention span.  Either way, I have problems focusing on the same sort of thing week after week or year after year.  I lose interest because I have done the same thing over and over and over (and often times, it seems like I am not getting any better at all).  My solution is to continue to want to learn new things rather than truly mastering the basics well.

2)  More knowledge:  I want to be acknowledged and recognized.  Badly.  So badly that I think that quickly moving forward to more visible appearances and presentations (through greater knowledge) is the key.  I often tend to skim over the stuff that is difficult (or boring, see item 1) rather than work to really dig down and get that right.  Why?  Because somewhere I have come to believe (and maybe in the business world it is presented this way)  that this is the way to move forward in life.  Which works - up to the point that you are actually called upon to us the basic knowledge only to discover that it is really not there.

It was a needed reminder (iaijutsu is good for all kinds of life lessons) that my focus needs to be on the basics:  knowing them, doing them well, being able to show them to others.  It may mean that in fact the "greater knowledge" is never achieved - but I need to realize that such a thing is not the ultimate value of the learning.  It is in doing something well, knowing it fully, and being able to execute it completely - even if it is basic - that the true basis for success is found.

Asking for Signs

Sometimes you have to ask, you know.

Not for the subtle or minor signs, the sort of thing that kind of dissipates into the night with a sigh.  No, sometimes you have to ask for a big sign - a large one, as big as the fleece that Gideon used before God.

Why?  Because you do not want to mess anything up.  You truly want to make the best sorts of decisions.  And sometimes those decisions have consequences.

So you ask.  You summon up your courage and ask "God, I need a sign.  I need a definitive one.  I need something that will truly guide me in the right decision to go."

And then you wait - believing, not just hoping, that such a sign will make itself apparent.

"If any of you lacks wisdom, you should ask God, who gives generously to all without finding fault, and it will be given to you." - James 1:5

Chores and Life's Destiny

I have always had a problem with the things that I am supposed to do.

I would guess (if you asked me) that this comes from a time and place where I somehow believed that I was something special and that I was destined to do great things.  Real life intervenes, of course:  one sometimes has to take the job one has to take, and then comes items and marriage and children, etc.  Suddenly those things that you were "destined" to do have been replaced by a series of things that need your attention.

You fight this, of course, find reasons for it not to be so.  You start begrudging your responsibilities your time, especially if they keep you away from the important stuff.  You find ways to minimize the time and energy you have to spend on such things, always looking for a little bit more of "your time".  Even the things that really should matter in your life become less important as they are overrun by the vision in your mind of the things you are supposed to be doing.

And then something happens.

The car breaks down.  Your fence falls over.  A pet falls sick.  And suddenly you realize that all the things you should have been paying attention to, those hours of maintenance and the dreaded "chores", have come back to haunt you.  Because while you were off trying to re-demonstrate to yourself how important the things you were destined to work were, the inevitability of life happened.

It is a change of mind to get back there, the sort of change of mind that once upon a time you remember being taught as a child:  chores first, then fun.  The problem is that you got the idea of chores mixed up with a life destiny - when in fact most of us do not have the overriding life destiny that we think we do other than the simple act of living ethically and responsibly in a world that desperately needs the example.

The solution, thankfully, is not as hard as it might seem even if it as boring as it sounds:  chores first, then fun.

Sure, it might not sound as exciting or even as interesting as doing that life's destiny that you thought you had - and it might even mean you do not do most of the things you thought were destined to do on a regular basis.  But it does do at least one thing: it allows you to sleep at night knowing the important things, the things you are responsible for, did not go undone.

And that may allow you to sleep best of all.

Mis-taught Learning

Mis-taught learning is the the worst of all.

I like knowledge - in fact, I may quality as a collector of knowledge.  I love knowledge - but I love to be able to apply the knowledge in ways that benefit myself and others.  And in this sort of world, the worst thing of all is knowledge which is presented as useful and productive but is presented in such a way that it is not applicable at all.

The knowledge may be wonderful.  The examples may be useful.  But they way the knowledge is presented is such that it is not at all relevant - or will be relevant - to the sorts of work one is doing.

It leaves a bad taste in one's mouth - not just for presentation of the material, but for the very material itself.  That leaves the sort of taste in one's mouth that one finds disappointing, especially if one had high hopes for the knowledge and the application of it. Given a long enough run, it creates issues for the very nature of the knowledge itself.

I wonder (on a higher level) if this is a problem with much of learning as well - not just that it is taught poorly but that it is taught in such a way that the relevance of the material is not presented as something which is valuable but rather something which must be suffered through.

Latin is useful.  Chemistry is useful.  But only if it is presented in such a way that individuals can make the connection of the value (and trust me, the value of knowledge goes far beyond coding and the ability to play games) with life as it actually is.

Hating Crossroads

I hate crossroads.

I hate crossroads because one has to commit. One  has to make a decision and go with it.

And I am terrible at making decisions.

Well, maybe terrible at making decisions.  Maybe a better word is terrible at committing.

Why?  Because commitment means choosing one thing above another thing - even if the thing you choose is wrong.  Which is sort of odd, because if you ask me of decisions I have made which I regret, the list is probably a great deal less than what I would consider it to be.  But even in those decisions, I suppose there is seldom I feeling I have that I really committed.

My sensei reminds me of this constantly.  It happened again last night - practicing ukimi (rolls)  he said "You have to commit.  If you do not commit, you find yourself rolling off to the side instead of rolling straight."  Iaijutsu is a great deal about commitment - when you put your hand to the hilt, you are committing to drawing.  Putting your hand up and pulling it away makes you less of a threat and in fact brings into question whether you will use your sword at all.

"What is the symbolic meaning of drawing the sword quickly?  When you have made a decision, act immediately without hesitation."  How many times have I repeated these words to myself in the car driving to work in the morning - and yet how seldom it seems I am willing to do them.

Here is the reality, of course:  crossroads come.  And in that decision of three roads (less the one you have come on, of course)  a definite commitment not to follow one become s a passive decision to follow whichever one becomes most convenient.  Hardly a way to get to a destination - or live a life.

When, coming to a crossroads, choose.

Commit.  And see what happens next.

Cleaning a Garden

I am terrible about cleaning up gardens.

I struggle with the idea of removing plants before they have completely died.  It is as if I feel this psychic connection with the plants in my garden.  They have survived the initial planting.  They have survived the rains of summer and the crazy  heat.  And so I hold on to them until the very last, dry leaf falls to the ground or it gets far past the season.

In point of fact, gardens are to be managed just like any other resource, especially if you want to get the most benefit out of them. True gardeners are regularly swapping plants in and out as soon as they have completed their prime production season or if they are simply not working out  in terms of production.  When the garden is a matter of survival, it significantly changes the view of it and how it should be managed.  It is no longer a hobby but something which needs to be carefully monitored and the waste removed from the system.

And then in a moment of shock, I realized that my life is no different.

I tend to keep things - hobbies, relationships, even just simply things - long past the date of their usefulness.  They integrate themselves into my life of course, and then they feel like they have always been there and need to be there - in fact, to remove them sometimes feels like a betrayal.  But the reality, much like my garden, it that they simply do not serve the purpose they were originally brought in for.  In fact, they may become so overgrown that they bury the opportunity for anything new to take bloom as they choke out the attention and resources that could be deployed to them.

I am better than I was, of course.  I am more likely than not to remove things, possibly before the end of the season.  But I have yet to truly reach the point where I am viewing it as a battlefield and my plants as soldiers, needing deployment (and perhaps removal) to help my reach my ultimate tactical goal.

Would that I could bring the same level of management to other parts of my life.

September Winter

Moisture from the sky?
Cool winds and clouds?  Has winter
come in September?

Thanks Bruce

So it turns out Bruce Lee was my height.

This is actually pretty significant.  No-one ever confused him with being less than a top-notch athlete, yet his stature was no more significant than mine.

He worked for it of course (as I am finding out).  Worked very hard for it.  Became a fanatic about exercise and nutrition and training.  But that still means that such a thing is achievable, if only one will spend the time and energy to do it.

I also found a quote of his, a quote which I like very much and may move to the pantheon of quotes that I try to live my life by:

"If you always put limits on everything you do, physical or anything else, it will spread into your work and into your life. There are no limits. There are only plateaus, and you must not stay there, you must go beyond them.” 

I sometimes wilt in the face of my friends - not so much that they ever say anything (because of course being gallant and kind-hearted they never would) - but that simple fact is that I am far removed from their levels of athletic ability.

But Bruce gives me hope - not that I will ever reach his level or that of my friends, but simply that even for someone with my height, much more is possible than I can imagine if I will only pay the price.

There are no limits.  There are only plateaus.

Thanks Bruce.

Midnight and Snowball

Black, white, and dry brown:Rabbits hop through the twilight,
yin and yang and heat.

Drained

Post audit days are mostly days of recovery.

That strikes some people as sort of amusing or even as something which does not seem possible - after all, is it not true that during audits all you really do is sit there, pull documents, and answer questions?  That is true of course - but the reality is hardly apparent to the eye that does not know better.

To be in an audit is to constantly be in a state of preparedness.  It is to constantly be trying to out think the auditor, to be ready for every potential outcome of the question they are asking, to listen to them in silence or perhaps when my head is nodding while in my mind I am racing ahead to find the solution to what they say, to avoid the potential observation or nonconformity.  And above all, to live in constant dread of finding the chink in the armor, the one thing that had been missed during preparation, the one failure that will bring the observation or nonconformity.

It is exhausting beyond all measure.

When it is done, one almost just collapses into one's chair.  One collects the various documents that were brought out for the audit and piles them up for filing or disposal later - doing it the day of is simply beyond the realm of rational thought.

And then comes the next day.  Today.

My aspirations are low indeed:  file and assess documents, close out the audit from our books, perhaps catch up on the work that I needed to do but did not because of the audit.  That might be all.  I cannot fully describe the feeling that body has now:  drained, tired, a little slow.  The thought of initiating an actual new project sounds so remote from where I am that I can scarcely must the energy for the thought.

Most people would never think that just sitting there could be so mentally exhausting.

Trying to Complete

I have a tendency to try and complete things.

This, one could argue, is a good characteristic to have.  We want to finish things.  We should want to bring things to completeness - in a real sense, success is merely continuing to bring things to a completed state.

But what happens if you are trying to complete things that no longer matter?

I wonder how much of my life is dominated by this, trying to complete projects or relationships that have traveled into my past.Things are that are no longer relevant.  Relationships that no longer have the context.  Projects that no longer have the impact or even the necessity. And yet there I am, toiling away with the bits of my free time, trying to make them complete.

Gardening is a good counter weight to this - in gardening, once something is ripe there is a limited time to act.  Waiting to do something only leads to rotten fruits and vegetables - all of the best intentions cannot make up for the fact that time and bacteria are also on a schedule as well, and that if you do not act, they will.

The unfortunate fact is that this is true for everything else in our lives as well.

Why does this matter?  Because if we choose to continue to complete that which has passed its time, we find ourselves trapped in a past doing the irrelevant for no purpose.  Things change, things move forward - but our eyes and hearts and minds are constantly looking in the rear view mirror, seeking simply to finish that which we have started.

Sometimes, it is really okay to simply let go and say "I am not going to complete this - because now there is no reason to."

A Gentle MIsconstruing of Purpose

I wonder if I have misconstrued my purpose.

I thought I had worked it out in my mind:  I was an encourager.  I was there to help lift other people up to succeed at whatever it was they were trying to do.  I was there to be a helper - perhaps in my my mind, a loyal servant, eager to do what I could - listen, assist, service, raise up - to help.

But I have been questioning that.

I suppose the error might be on my own part.  This was a role that I appointed for myself.  There was no sense that this was "God-Given", except that I was trying to find such a role after the things I thought were those roles - first ministry, then leadership in the Church - were demonstrated to be ideas that I had in my own mind.  I had tried to craft a meaningful mission statement as well  - "To Write for Impact, To Preserve for the Future, To Lead for Change, To Glorify God".  but that really did not seem to work out either:   my writing for change truly seems limited to this blog and inspirational quotes I post, the preservation for the future - The Ranch - has become impossible to contemplate when I am so far away, my leadership attempts have never really worked out the way I hoped (I always envisioned the strong, noble leader - instead I am the first among equals who does get things done but not in a strong, noble way), and only God truly knows if I qualify in glorifying Him.

Which leads me here:  what happens when you realize you purpose may have been not what you thought it was?

I am judging by results, and my results seem to be haphazard at best.  The reality I perceive is those I thought I was providing this to have moved on from it - or maybe they have simply got what they needed and carried on, which I suppose would be a justification that it was the right thing.  In either event, I find myself at a painful crossroads:  the purpose I thought I had seemingly done with no direction of where to go next.

It might sound like I am am angry or bitter.  I am not.  Confused is a more appropriate assessment, maybe a little hurt in the confusion.  If this is success of a purpose, I would have thought that would have felt, well, more accomplished - instead I am just sort of aimlessly floating in space, grasping at something (once again) which I thought was "it" but turns out at best to be just another step.

Where  do I go from here?  I have no real guidance.  I feel as if I have run out of ideas, leaving myself in a great heath of featureless heather and small bushes with no landmarks, no path leading to the next step.  I would love to say a time of meditation and consideration is here - but even within that thought, life rolls on.

But I can only turn my face towards the future. One thing I have learned, at great pain to myself:  once you realize that a purpose has passed, you must let it go.  One can never resurrect the dead, no matter how good and hopeful the intentions are.

Upon Finding A Closed Door

Closing doors can be the most confusing things of all.

It is not the typical "closed door" that confuses me.  These are pretty straightforward - one moves in a straight line until one finds the door that is closed, hopefully  by merely testing it but sometimes by running flat into it and breaking one's nose.  Closed door, will not budge - off to try another door, another direction.

Instead, the ones that are confusing are the partially closed doors.

These are the ones that either one gets part of the way through and sudden one realizes one cannot squeeze through it or - even worse - the ones that start moving closed as one is trying to get through it.  These are the toughest and most confusing of all, because the initial instinct is to try to get through the door more quickly only to find out the door is closing as fast as you are trying to force your way in.

In either case you find yourself outside of the door, perhaps holding to everything that you had planned to take in through the door with you.  It is as if you planning to move into an apartment - perhaps were even in the process of moving in - only to find out that no move was going to happen and you are left standing in a pile of your possessions.

You stop and take inventory, of course.  Did I misread the door?  No, it was quite open when you first started to go through.  Did I not move quickly enough?  Well possibly - but then again, sometimes moving too quickly just slams you into the door that has shut more quickly than you could get in.  Or perhaps I should have simply pushed harder on the door and made it yield to my will - but in reality this hardly ever works as well as it seems to be a good idea as broken doors become useless, letting all kinds of things in - or out.

No, the reality is simply this (as painful and humiliating as it sounds):  after jiggling and perhaps testing to discern that the door is truly closed and not merely stuck, there is nothing left for it but to begin the process of picking up your things and moving to another door.

Because there is little more foolish and unfortunate than continuing to bang on the door that has obviously been closed and locked - and miss seeing the open door that is right next to it.

Dreams of Glue, Cell Phone, and Plastic Parts - Follow Up

Yesterday we tried to go through my dream of earlier this week.  My counselor introduced me to something call dreammoods.com, which is a dictionary of images in dreams and what they might me.

A couple of highlights from the dream and their possible meanings:

"Key:  To see a key in your dream symbolizes opportunities, access, control, secrets, freedom, knowledge or responsibilities. You may be locking away your own inner feelings and emotions. Or you are unlocking the answer to some problem....To dream that you lose your keys signify fears of losing control of yourself or losing your position or status in life. It may also indicate unexpected changes, frustrations, and unpleasant adventures. The dream could be analogous to lost or missed opportunities. If you give your key away, then it suggests that you have given up control of some situation or responsibility. "

"Bus:  To dream that you are waiting for a bus indicates a temporary setback in achieving your personal goals. If you miss the bus, then it indicates that an aspect of your life is out of control. You need to slow down and map out a new plan."

"Telephone:  To see or hear a telephone in your dream signifies a message from your subconscious or some sort of telepathic communication. You may be forced to confront issues which you have been avoiding. Alternatively, the telephone represents your communication and relationship with others."

"Sign - To see a sign in your dream indicates that you need help.  You need some direction and guidance in your life. Pay attention to what the sign says and what it is pointing you to do. Perhaps the dream is highlighting "a sign of the times".

I am usual not one for dream interpretation, but these items - along with general feelings that I awoke with from the dream - made for interesting thoughts as we walked through things.

Key - The key was not directly involved in the dream except as something I was trying to spell out but could not, and questioned why I was not using actual letters to build it.  Is it a form of the key missing, something lost or control given up?

Bus - Pretty much missed the bus in the dream.  Is there an aspect of my life that is out of control?

Telephone -  Again, not directly involved in the dream except as a tool for someone else.  Is it that I am always trying to communicate for others and not myself, or that I was avoiding an issue that I need to deal with?

Sign - Road signs bent over, arrows facing towards the ground.  Have I lost direction or that my directions all simply seem to be in one direction - down?

I suppose that if you look at the general tone of things - lack of control, out of control, lack of ability to communicate or lack of communication, and loss or lack of direction, you seem to come up with a few central themes:  loss of control of where I am going and what I am doing and how I am communicating.  It would seem to support the general sense I have right now in my life of being trapped by events and circumstances with little ability to chose.

And my feelings when I woke up?  Songbird said it far more wisely than I could have:  "Seems like your subconscious is saying you let personal interests distract you so that you will deliberately 'miss the bus'...the activities you did were redundant and slow, something you chose to do out of a perception of personal necessity, which caused you to miss the important bus".

Something to mull over, at any rate.

Pride in Work?

As I was pushing through my pile of things to do at work, I had one of those occasional moments of questioning exactly what I was doing.

I spent the whole day more less attending to different tasks - e-mails, follow ups, setting meetings, preparing for upcoming visits, catching up.  At the end of the day I looked to my desk and my in-box and found that just by viewing those two metrics, you would be hard pressed to tell that I accomplished anything at all at work.

I think this is one of the more frustrating aspects of what I do:  it is very hard to point to something and say "Behold what I have done". The fact is that most of this hardly exists except as a electrons and physical sheets of paper that are moved, reviewed, signed and filed in a vacuum that seldom if ever see the light of day.

There is no "finish line"; no point at which the building is complete or the book is finished or the artwork completed.  Seldom, too, is there the ability to go back later and be able to point out to anyone what you have accomplished.  The accomplishments dwell mostly in the mind and on hard drives and in paper files that exist only to be filed away and destroyed at some later date.

We are taught that we should take pride in our work - but when your work is essential invisible, inaudible, and transient, it becomes very difficult indeed.

A Slight Malaise of the Soul

I have been suffering from a slight malaise of the soul over the last few days.

I cannot truly define it greater than that.  It is not fully a physical sickness - although I have been feeling run down.  It is not fully mental - although I have found myself distracted.  And it is not fully spiritual - although my soul seems leaden down by things I cannot fully explain.

It is a restlessness of sorts, a wandering sense of not being connected to anything or anyone even as I find myself surrounded by people and things to do.  It lowers my energy to the point that I do not feel like doing anything at all,  even as it steals my interest in doing anything at all. I feel trapped yet I do not want to go anywhere, alone in the midst of people, forgotten even though it is quite clear I am not, and fallen even though I am not aware I was taken down.

I do not like feeling this way because I cannot tie it to a particular event or action.  That makes it much easier, of course - after all, if I can find something to tie it to I can easily go back, look at what is going on, and then come to some kind of resolution or at least figure my way out of the situation.  That has been denied me right now as I seem to have nothing to figure out - only this vague sense of something being wrong, something which I am unable to identify to fix.

Every look inside turns awry; every attempt to name the thing falls into silence; every attempt to cheer myself only leads to hollow laughter in my own head.

I do not know this thing, and by thereby not knowing it I cannot understand it.  And by not understanding it, I cannot fix or repair it.  All I can seem to do, like a bull in a snowstorm, is set my face towards the wind and hope that I can outlast it.

Dream of Glue, Cell Phone, and Plastic Parts

One of the most vivid dreams I have had in a while, certainly the first one in a while I can remember.

I was at company meeting which for some reason had to occur over a weekend.  There were a number of people there I recognized - not the whole company, but enough of senior management.  The person in charge, from our legal department, was going through a presentation.  The point of it was that a project we had been working on - a project that had failed - still had to be closed out.  The meeting was to cover the list of things that needed to be written or completed to make that happen.

At that, the meeting broke up and we were walking down a residential street with door opening onto the street.  I stopped to tie my shoe at one and kicked the door frame.  It looked to me like I might have cracked it but I could not be sure.  Suddenly the door opens and the resident, an older fellow, looks out.  I had apparently accidentally knocked the door.  We briefly talk - and I say nothing about the door frame.  Maybe it was that way, I reason to myself.

We walk farther, and then I am caught by another man and his wife.  Can I make a cell phone call for them, they ask?  Certainly - but it is not a cell phone call.  Apparently they need me to take a picture - but they need me to make a picture in order to take it.  I see  a bus in the distance with all of the people from work on it, ready to go.  It will only take a few minutes, I say to myself.  So I start forming letters on a jacket they have given me with glue and small plastic things.

It is taking a long time.  My letters are not perfect, I have to ask them at least once what the phone number needs to be - all the time I can see the bus there, waiting.  I run out of letters and space, and am trying to spell the word "key" and failing.  I have the thought of why did I not just use plastic letters instead of trying to spell things out, but keep trying.  The bus is still waiting.  Finally they bring me more things to work with and I lay the jacket down - on a red Mustang cover, like the one I used to have to finish.  As I am working on it, I hear a group of people coming up.  Some of them start arguing with the people next to where we are about something I cannot understand while others are prompting me to "hurry up, hurry up, we need to go".  "Wait"  I say, "I'm almost done".  I lay the jacket out and take the picture - only to turn and see that they have driven off.

The last thing I remember is the couple thanking me and the next thing I know it is dark and I am at a place with bent over sign poles, waiting for another bus.  "Why are you here?"  the couple who I called for asks me.  "Because I missed the bus" I reply.

And then I woke up.

Quail!

The quail have come.

Technically these are a birthday present for Nighean Dhonn; she has some at her school and decided she wanted some of her own.  However, they coincide with my own goal of greater independence at any level.

They are a mix:  4 Texas A&M Coturnix quil and 2 Straight Coturnix Quail.  They are somewhere between 3 and 4 weeks old at this stage:  old enough to be away from the brooder but not fully feathered out yet.  From everything that I read, they reach the beginnings of maturity and egg laying starting at 6 weeks.

I am excited.  We cannot keep chickens where we currently live but quail should be small enough to escape the notice and annoyance of everyone:  they are quiet, they are small, and their caging can be low to the ground.

I still have a few things to work out, like ultimate living arrangements (I have an idea, but I need to get some cover going) so they are ensconced in a cardboard box where we can hear them talking to each other.

This is going to be good - and fun.

Welcome Quail!