Filed under: self-work, voice blog, work | Tags: books, life story, philosophizing, self-work, voice blog, work
This post is partially a reaction to my post-1098 ruminations and partly a reaction to reading just the first four pages of a book called The Renaissance Soul by Margaret Lobenstine.
It contains musings on career choice, the need for passion, my ideal life progression vis a vis jobs, a reminiscence on how my historical interests progressed and radically altered… oh, and a bunch of other stuff. Am hoping this will be useful to the people contemplating this stuff, especially GG, C, and N.
This is the positive review I talk about from The Simple Dollar. It also gives a broad overview of the contents of the book, so you can see whether it will be of interest to you or not. I trust Trent’s taste in books from a long experience of reading things he’s reviewed and generally agreeing with that he says.
Without further ado, here is the post:
The Renaissance Soul: Musings on Career and FDR 1098
A partial list of things I’ve been interested in:
animal husbandry, medieval history, homesteading, brewing, embroidery, construction work, 1960s automobiles, guns, Latin, computers, UFOs, siege technology, swords, camping, Welsh, horses, Irish dance, Hughes Aircraft airplanes, 1940s films, greyhounds, stoic philosophy, Baroque opera, Risk, bomb-making (hey! I’m an anarchist), 1950s fashion, French, poetry, Mark Rothko, farming, card games, cooking, wicca (no, was never a practitioner), James Bond, dressage, ballet, Star Wars, holistic medicine, Occitan, physics, animal rescue, mountaineering, early Byzantine clothing, 9th century Spain, the FBI, foxhunting, archery…
Average length of all-consuming interest in said things? 3 months, or thereabouts. How am I ever going to figure out a career path? Lord.
ETA: After a convo in the chat room tonight… I know exactly how I’m going to figure out a career path. I know exactly what’s been trying to hit me over the head since October, and for a long time before that. What Stef said in 1098 and I promptly forgot. That is: it’s not about me. So, not about my self-aggrandizing by becoming a whirlwind Renaissance woman. Not about me serially switching careers in a desperate bid to seek happiness and validation externally. No. No… because there’s one thing that I have a deep and abiding love for. One fixed star. One goddess in my pantheon. The only thing I have ever loved – however far I may stray from her, however obscured she may become, however much my false self fights – in the deep and abiding way that keeps passion alive even in the face of fear and pain and loneliness and derision… is the truth. Not history. Not… any of those things listed above. The bright star in the firmament is truth. Wisdom. Philosophy. And for those things I will never lose passion.
I do hope that you’ll listen to this, my dears. In fact, if you listen to no other voice post of mine, I hope you will listen to this one. It covers… not only why I study history, but some interesting thoughts on cognition in general. Yes, my friends, a meta-cognitive post.
Stef asked me in 1098, and I’ve been asking myself for a long time… why I study history. Is it the lessons history teaches? Is it because history is challenging to study? Is it because it’s intrinsically interesting? Is it because I’ve been able to lord it over other people? Yes – on various levels – to all of those. And I’ll explore all of those in other parts of this series. But the primary reason I study history is the question of cognition. Of empathy. And of realization.
Without much further ado, here is the post.
This is a response to one of the metaphors at the end of Stef’s new book – Practical Anarchy. The book, if you’ve not read it, is 36,000 varieties of awesome. You owe it to yourself to read. (Will link to the free book once it’s finally released to more than D+ donators.)
Here’s what Stef says:
I am also acutely aware of the reality that had I been born and lived in a different time – a later time, or an earlier one – I would have been peddling a bicycle with a broken chain, if you understand me. The power of the conversation that I have initiated and am involved in is what gives my mind traction, links and engages it in the real world; it is the other stick that brings the new fire.
Thus for me it is an irreplaceable privilege to be doing what I am, where I am, during this time in history. I am a man who is excited by navigation, not the unloading of cargo. I live to explore, not to settle and consolidate. I live for battle, not administration.
Amen, brother. My dear brother, amen.
The entire book is beautiful. One section at the beginning and two sections at the end, even more so. If the amount of tears shed by the reader equals the amount shed by the writer… I can see why writing this took so much out of Stef.
So, without further ado…
Filed under: dreams, self-work, voice blog | Tags: dreams, self-work, voice blog
An odd dream, in context. Or perhaps… not so odd.
Filed under: self-work, voice blog | Tags: FDR, friends, self-work, voice blog
I’ve been suffering lately from an extreme bout of FOOgoo-related poisoning lately. They’re poisoning me, yeah, but… what they really go for are my relationships. My abilities to act like a sane, considerate, empathetic human being around you guys, therefore, have… suffered. To say the least.
Today it’s come to a bit of a head. I think I’ve been able to keep most of the shit from spraying over you guys, though there was one incident about an hour ago that… touched off a bit of introspection. Which (with the caveat, mind you, that the initial part of this is a lot of me crying and projecting) I post for you… just in case – or… no. I KNOW a lot of us have the same problems. Searching for the empathy, the regard, the unconditional love that our parents should have had for us in various more or less destructive ways.
I’ve actually been able to feel, tonight. I’m feeling… a wave of sadness now. I don’t want to act this out for the rest of my life. I don’t want to be stimulus response robot, or defense mechanism robot, or projection robot, or any sort of robot at all. Re-humanization.
You know, on the walk home I was thinking… what have I given up for truth? My family, old friends, hobbies, future career. Yes, all of that. But… that’s not a sacrifice. It’s a boon. Because… if I would never have found the truth… if I would have kept my family, old friends, hobbies, future career… I could not conceive of being anything better than vaguely unhappy for the rest of my life. Vague unhappiness would be the best I could hope to strive for – and it would have probably turned, in the end, to out and out misery. So it is not “giving up” anything to lose these things. For… in laying down those things – which were truly burdens, not boons – I leave my hands free to pick up joy wherever I may find it. That is no sacrifice.
If there is another thing I need to lay down – my training, defense mechanisms, grandeur, vanity, paranoia, victim mentality – in order to leave my hands free to grasp joy, and to grasp the loving hands of my friends… I will do it. That is no sacrifice. That is the best work I could conceive of.
So, my friends, this voice post is my attempt to lay down one of the flaming swords that bars me from elysium. I am sorry for having wanted you to be miserable for my sake.
I have dreams from the past 4 days to post, but this is the most vivid, surprising, and… weird one yet – so it gets posted first. In this dream, mother is actually vulnerable (for a time), actually discusses buried family history (first time) and I take the wheel – literally.
One thing I didn’t mention was the weather change. It is cold and rainy and nasty when I leave my companion (I want to say it is James, but I don’t think so) and first get in the car with mother and B. By the time we’re taking the back way towards 59 (the freeway down there) though, the weather is sunny and pleasant. It stays this way throughout the dream.
So… finally a post about one of my favorite subjects. It’s… 45 minutes long. Sorry! But it contains a lot of interesting (hopefully) information. Let me know what you think of it, and if you want a sequel that tells what happened the next day.
The First Crusade – Origins, Siege of Antioch
Note: For those of you who like to read first-hand accounts, here are some translated primary sources.
Filed under: dreams, self-work, voice blog | Tags: dreams, self-work, voice blog
WEIRD set of dreams, my friends. They’re all sorts of loosely interconnected, but nothing very certain – at least to my mind. Rhamanus and Nicholas bring up all sorts of templates and associations for me… but Nico looks like Justice and I have always imagined the two as one in the same. Even though Rhamanus won and has the ear of the governor, I’m glad that Nico has placed 2nd or somehow also won and that he is the one who comes to greet me after the competition with such a brilliant, open, generous smile on his face. Oddly enough, I never see my competitors! I am at different times in the gallery watching the race and on the course itself, for I see the snow melting revealing the frozen carpet below. Who said you can’t snowboard inside!
Filed under: FDR, deFOO, self-work, voice blog | Tags: deFOO, FDR, life story, self-work, voice blog
A reaction to this podcast. And a little more.
I’ve listened to that podcast like 4 times and took notes – and these are my ruminations on both my listenings and the notes I took. Am hoping that Stef will send me our last two convos so that I can take notes on those as well and try to figure out what the fuck this is – though I shan’t post my notes about our private convo. Will also certainly take both convos to the therapist when I go.
I may as well call the following recording “All the lessons that Stef has tried to teach me recently that I have completely ignored, fogged, minimized, been aggressive or passive-aggressive about, and generally shat all over him for – with examples.”
The part starting around minute 17 is what I hope will be helpful to you, my friends – in case you want to skip.
1067 Reactions: the REAL Rubicon
It’s been the sheerest vanity to think that I was not the one who needed to change. That’s completely what mother would say: that other people, and not her, were the problem. Mother, whose favorite phrase was “Stop manipulating me!” when she, herself, was the biggest manipulator I’ve ever known.
Additions and corrections:
1. Apologies for the tittering when I say that every one of the lessons in 1067 was a lesson that I ignored. That’s not funny. Not for one second.
2. Also for the half-snicker when I say for the first time that I’ve never lived my values.
3. The bit when I say for the first time that there’s a statute of limitations on the length of time one’s a victim is… nervousness I think. Maybe a laugh? Defense? Don’t know.
4. The bit where I say that Stef has shown me amply that he does not hate me is… I’m not sure. I was feeling exasperated and disgusted with myself at this point.
5. Same with where I say all the evidence is on the contrary side to mother-in-my-head’s argument that Stef is unfair and hates me.
6. It was a laugh where I said I wouldn’t have sent him an email saying “WTF mate?!”
7. Also where I said I’d re-read the email I sent him back 25 times.
8. Likewise where I talk about my reply telling him that I still hadn’t absorbed his lesson re: isolation.
9. And then I laugh again when I say that laughing is NOT kosher. :(
4-9 obviously provide evidence that I’m still really defensive about my replies to Stef, and indicate – I think – that I’m still very much missing something. Will find that.
I’ve never been to SF, but I had a dream last night that I was there. Things were very odd indeed.
Pardon my voice. I’m sick (strep throat, hooray) and quite tired.
