I guess I'm back...

....and hopefully here to stay.

Although I find it a little intimidating to return. I have tried numerous times to re-ignite a discipline of regular writing, but it never seems to stick.

But I think I have to do something, even if it's crappy. Being crap at something is the first step top being sort of okay at something. That's why I'm back on this actually website as well.
It's got history on here. It's got old pieces that reflect a younger, messier, imperfect version of myself. But perfection cannot be the enemy of good. I am okay that I was am imperfect. And I have to be okay with the fact that I am imperfect now. And I have to learn that that is no reason to not create.

So why come back now?

I guess I feel that I am ready. There are things I want to say, that more and more I appreciate are worth saying.

Throughout the years I have been angry, and confused, and living a life that was far from my own. I didn't have the maturity and language to express the journey, or to give it due to diligence. I feel that's different now. I have embraced my journey. I have embraced it's imperfection. I have embraced my own life.

And for a while that has been enough. I have been happy in a life that is true to myself. There is nothing of which I am more proud than that fact. But I must embrace that that is an ongoing evolution.

So I'm back. And I'm here to generate material. Lots of it I think. Lots of really low quality posts, and a few big awesome ones.

26/08/2015 - put this on facebook

Michael’s Link Dump!

Just a way to share things I find interesting and useful. Also an opportunity for you all to share your lovely insights with me.

1.

I've been reading Esther Perell and she's amazingly insightful. I think she really captures the conflicting wants that we have in committed relationships. It's certainly taking a lot of the worries around becoming exclusive and why that would become boring. I found it refreshing to see how she disregards this absurd expectancy that predictable monogamy 'should' be good enough to be exciting and erotic, and examines and appreciates the tension we experience in relationships when we find things that are naughty, mysterious, often politically incorrect and destructive to be sexually appealing, but also understand that those can often be the very things that endanger the security of our relationships.

“Sexual excitement is politically incorrect, often thriving on power plays, role reversals, unfair advantages, imperious demands, seductive manipulations, and subtle cruelties. American couples therapists, shaped by the legacy of egalitarian ideals, often find themselves challenged by these Contradictions.”

https://www.ted.com/speakers/esther_perel

http://www.estherperel.com/pix/networker_perel.pdf

2. 

Edit ruthlessly! I find deliberately carving my niche is hard and requires a buttload of mindfulness. It’s so easy to let others set the agenda when you live in a world like ours. Being pro-active about living out my values is something I have to do habitually. One particular way I find really helpful for me in doing that is making sure I get rid of things I don’t need often. These involves option I think. Barry’s TED talk on choice really got me thinking about the realities of having so many options in our lives. My voluntarily and intelligently removing options in my life, from simple things like ‘which pair of shoes am I going to wear today,’ to ‘which friend am I going to make time for’, frees up a lot of energy I was investing in making these decisions. It also allows me to manage my expectations better. Hence deleting Dota 2 from my computer.

It’s not a choice anymore, I can’t waste any more energy on deciding whether I’ve worked hard enough to indulge a game, whether I can afford to set aside time to play a game, whether I should be spending free-time to investigate and improve me ability.
I miss playing it a lot, but despite how enjoyable it was, it didn’t have enough utility to be considered worth it.

https://www.ted.com/talks/graham_hill_less_stuff_more_happiness?language=en

http://www.ted.com/talks/barry_schwartz_on_the_paradox_of_choice?language=en

3. 

I hate the suburbs. It’s difficult to understand why in a lot of ways. I found this talk resonated with me in a lot of ways. It was interesting to see things from his perspective in terms of space and community.

https://www.ted.com/talks/james_howard_kunstler_dissects_suburbia?language=en

4. 

I’m currently reading Amanda Pamler’s ‘The Art of Asking’ after discovering that Brene Brown wrote her foreword.

Reading the perspective of a crazy out-there artist is surprisingly insightful, especially in contrast and comparison to Brene Brown’s work. On the surface they are such different people and their methods are so diverse, but both have gotten a hold of what I think are universally important truths about self-worth, love, and human connection. Her experiences busking as The Bride is particularly fascinating. Her act was such that every day she was experiencing unique and intimate moments with strangers every day in a very unusual way. I’m enjoying reading the insights this and other experiences have afforded her.

5.

Psychological Anthropology is amazing. It’s the first discipline I've come across that seems to have the appropriate level of scope and nuance to capture the apostate journey because of its ability to capture both personality and culture and their complex relationship succinctly. It’s the most enjoyable subject I’ve had at university yet, and has helped me think of ways I can express a lot of my experiences and views more comprehensively and precisely.

Some stuff I’m reading/excited to start reading:

The Art of Asking – Amanda Palmer

The Brain’s way of Healing – Norman Doidge

Rising Strong – Brene Brown (about to start)

Mating in Captivity: Reconciling the Erotic and Domestic – Esther Perell (about to start)

Lots of shit on statistics (thanks Uni!)

Lots of shit on Freud

Aim is to do this about once a week, so I can have lots of interesting discussions with people, and just so I have a way of expressing all the wonderful things I’m thinking about and learning.

22/08/2015

1. 

Gasp I missed a day. How horrible and lazy and bad of me.

Just kidding. Who cares. 

Man going softer on myself has made my life so much richer. Like take mornings for example. I am SO shit at mornings. I'm like borderline zombie in the morning. I am more or less persistently late.

*call interruption*

I'm blogging at work between calls so it's fragmenting my train of thought. But back to mornings!

I used to beat myself up over them. Now not so much. I mean I still hate it when I'm late. Especially if its important - but generally I've just - 

*call interruption*

And I'm back! I think someone used dial-up on the line and wrecked it. It's funny. I'm still on there hearing dial-tones.

But yes, I've accepted that I am not a morning person. It's a habit I can't shake. My cognitive faculties in the morning are too weak to bring to bear, and I have all these cached thoughts and behaviours from when my life sucked that I can't avoid. I know intellectually my day will probably be awesome but my morning body has habituated to resisting the waking up process.

I think I'll just do my best and not let the outcome worry me

*call interruption*

and honestly that makes me feel like I can do it. It means I'm not afraid to keep trying because I'm not going to waste any energy worrying or stressing about it.

in a weird roundabout reaching way I'm finding its a consequence of changing some core-beliefs regarding self worthiness.

"Here's what is truly at the heart of wholeheartedness: Worthy now, not if, not when, we're worthy of love and belonging now." - Brene Brown.

That shit rocked my world. I was living a life where I was constantly not enough, and I was always waiting for me to reach my potential before I'd even consider myself worthy. And its because I've got this concept that I am worthy despite imperfection, I'm not chasing validation, I'm not insecure; I'm come at all things from a place of confidence - including my bad morning habits.

Yes they're costly at times, and get in the way; but they have no control over my worthiness. 

*call interruption*

and I'm back. This job is not good for letting my write things.

The morning seems like such a small thing but honestly it feels so different to how it was in my life before.

2.

I'm still groping with finding the balance between sensitivity, taking responsibility and whether to accept fault. I'm generally huge on being sensitive, but I'm often frustrated by the extent to which I always have to consider others; there's always someone whose going to be offended.

I've found that adopting a level of hyper-sensitivity isn't always a healthy way forward. It sets a bar that follows you around, and then you find yourself having to mince absolutely everything you say. It's untenable to take personal responsibility/fault for every time a person is upset. And honestly sometimes they should be upset.

But I'm standing in the refuge of assholes in this. Which is an upsetting reality. 

I think I'm struggling to find why I find it so exasperating. I've been challenged about being naive to my privilege as a a white, rich, educated straight male on the odd occasion, and not maliciously. Usually with best intention. And it doesn't happen often, because generally most people recognize I am a very empathetic person. 

But perhaps that's it. I've worked hard to learn to care and listen and love where I feel it really matters. And what's more I've gotten really good at it. I know by and large I try to behave in a manner that treats people with decency and respect where it matters.

I need to grapple with it more so I can articulate and understand this tension more clearly.

Because I appreciate the need to be careful and sensitive, and I agree that we should all be caring about each others feelings and well-being. But I also feel something needs to be said about tiptoeing around each other all the time. Somewhere that becomes an interference between people, or even an disingenuous indulgence. 

And for me personally, what are my boundaries? Where are my responsibilities? 

3.

I feel I've come to a much more complete understanding about the long reaching consequences of having an intimate relationship. I had a compartmentalized intimacy not too long ago that kind of spilled over into real life in a pretty big way. It was a tricky thing to handle. There's dimension to it wherein you share this precious space with a person wherein you are vulnerable and real. You give them this incredible power of you; you let them touch and validate and edify the very essence of who you are. Its like you have all this levels of connection. Then when it ends, often for very good reasons, suddenly you have to set up these walls - you can't relate the way you did. The space is forfeited. It has to be if either party is to look after itself and move on. But unfortunately that forfeit also includes the opportunity to validate and communicate affection and respect. They can't afford to let your affections be important to them. Despite my desire to ensure that the person knows that I still think they are truly wonderful, that I have the deepest respect for them and believe in their worthiness, it can't be communicated without violating this paradigm; we no longer share that space. 

So I wan them to know that, and they may want to know that, but its such that I've no right to need them to know that I know that. That communication would cultivate a dependence on each other that we can no longer afford.

That sounds confusing and complicated. But I guess it is.

I think its also help me realized another harsh reality of intimacy in the modern world:

4. 

Relationships are complicated and messy and everywhere because life has become complicated and messy and everywhere.

I don't mean this in a negative way either.

But life is so diverse nowadays, and repression becomes less and less appealing as a way of navigating life. Probably because it makes us unhappy. 

We're complicated and that complication will come into our relationships. Its exciting because it opens up so many ways for us to connect and experience each other. But that's inevitably tricky to navigate at times.

5.

It's really hard to write when your thoughts are interrupted every 2 seconds by a call. its just a mess

but maybe i should try anyway to help fight perfectionism. There's a lot of thoughts out in this post that look incomplete and strange without proper context. But whatever, I'm not writing an academic essay. I'm dicking around at work; I can indulge a lack of coherence here.

20/8/2015

1.
Day 2 of writing about a page of material. There's no word count on this site so I figure ~page works.
Still hard not to feel like a wind-sock. I need to give some more thought as to how to actually engage people. Writing itself I think is important; journaling and what not. Even reading back the posts here from yonks ago has been good. It allows me to get a bigger perspective on myself I think.
But the big drive for me is engagement. I miss connecting with people in this way, and I want to do it again but preferably in a more sensitive and intelligent manner. Not in the desire to be more amiable though. I just want to be more deliberate and considered in my provocations.

2.
Uni really stressed me out yesterday. I think a mix of things had kind of built up a lot of pressure and it was hard to get my head out of it. Today I started at 10 and have worked now till 6:00 and feel a lot more relaxed about the whole thing. Its hard to gauge I think, especially because the level of work and requirements as such tend to vary across the semester and across semesters. Balancing it with work sucks. I don't like work.
I think what really crunched things up was just that it felt all a bit out of my control; I really struggle with that. I relish my agency. More than relish. I need it. And a big part of that is keeping balance in my life, and at the moment with all that's going on balance tends to be tipping in imabalances' favour.

3. 
Because of said business not a lot on the mind. I use to feel kind of bad about that; like I should be writing non-stop. But who cares. I think the advice of PC as been most effective. Employing a regime will ensure that when there are things worth writing they'll come out and get captured. And not being perfect. At all.

19/08/2015

1.
1000 words a day

that seems like a fair amount.

The blank page has been kicking my ass. I have all this stuff I need to express but I'm overwhelmed by the sheer magnitude of it. I wish I had just been writing everyday for ever.

But yeah I should just write a lot.

Its difficult to rectify the need to be sincere and honest and oversharing. I don't like that. Its hard.

2.
I'm irked though. Irked and muted. I have a strong desire to project my mind into the public domain and get some discourse going, but to do so threatens the tenuous relationships I have with some people I care deeply about.
But I don't know that I can go on so silently. I'm realizing that its quite a burden. I feel like there is so much I can contribute and I'm constantly holding back because of family. Because I think they're scared. Because I feel like I need to protect them.
That feeling is waning. I don't want to protect them. They are better than that, and if not, they should understand that I at least expect them to be.

3.
The other odd thing is how much my relationship with my partner has really stirred up these feelings. To get security from her love and acceptance has made me feel more free to tackle meatier issues. For a while I have been taking things very slowly out of necessity. There were very few people I could count onto to care for me and so I feel like I've had to be my own source of love and compassion a lot of the time. To have someone else who is willing to look after me in that way is extremely empowering. I am grateful for her.

I am realizing that she's probably going to be a pretty permanent fixture in my life. That is both intimidating and exciting. That commitment to single-ness I had going there for a while was really the only thing that gave me pause, and under analysis there was no real reason why I wouldn't want to surrender it. I didn't need it any more.
Its not just that we get along. Across the past year particularly, she has been exposed to pretty much every aspect of my life. She knows who I am, what I want and what I expect and she's walked into that willingly, with eyes wide open. She knows I want to be the best version of myself and she wants to be a part of that process.
She's amazing and I love her. We'll see what our future holds. Could be anything, but what gives me confidence is our ability and strength to handle it. We've kicked so much ass already.

And its going to be challenging, what with our families being so different to us. I kind of relish the opportunity actually.

4.
But in terms of formatting my writing; I dunno. Blog posts? Daily journal? Neither? A weird combination of public essays and personal writings?
I'm worry about dividing the 2 because what's worth sharing is mostly what's personal. But some business is merely my own. I wonder how to strike the balance.
I think to start though a 1000 words a day won't go astray.

5.
I've been reprimanded lately for the use of a homophobic slur, despite it being highly and obviously facetious. Generally the sentiments expressed I agree with.
The context was such that the choice of word was probably unnecessary. Its hard line to tread though. Hyper-sensitivity is a word that I'm afraid to employ, namely because its used by assholes and bigots everywhere as an excuse for them to say horrible things. but maybe being audacious in such a manner is a litmus test  I employ; perhaps unfairly so at times -
It's hard to know what level of sensitivity any given circumstance requires. In this case my level of sensitivity was clearly not high enough.
I wonder about parody of racism, homophobia and the such. Is it ever safe to do so? And does it need doing?
Perhaps I've used it as a way of signalling my disdain for them, but the message gets lost across the inferential gap sometimes. Something I need to think about a little more. There's more nuance that I haven't being intelligent enough about.

Alone

the worst pain isn't hunger,

it isn't freezing, or burning,

it isn't stabbing or slashing,

it isn't physical

it isn't confusion, or ignorance

it isn't being lost, or clueless,

it isn't not understanding

it isn't loss, the death of a friend,

it isn't the things that escaped your grasp,

it isn't the thing you once held.

it isn't anger, or revenge,

it isn't the bitterness or resentment,

it isn't the jealousy that eats inside,

the worst pain, the pain that doesn't bite,

doesn't sting, the pain that is always dull,

despairingly dull and numb,

that is always overwhelming -

that never fully goes away, that will always scare us - is lonliness

the greatest pain, is no one knowing, and no one caring,

it is when your life goes by with actions without meaning

for with lonliness, comes irrelevance, the realization that pain means nothing.

and that nothing, it consumes, it latches onto us like a parasite that we foster, that we hold onto, and pretend to find necessary.

For love we hunger, we burn, we freeze,

we humble, we confuse, we lose,

for love we forgive, we forget,

for love we live,

but for the lonliness, we nothing.

Restlessness

There's been some urges lately for me to go bigger and deeper.
Reconnecting in Sydney has been massive for me on so many levels. The people I'm seeing, the conversations I'm having, the stuff I'm doing. Its the little things that make up life. And they are nourishing.
But I think they are building blocks for bigger things.
I don't know yet what these things are. I look forward to them, but I dare not jeopardize those basic things that sustain me in the pursuit.
For now, to work, to play, to rest is enough. But I'm not sure for how long.
Too many times I finish my evenings in this late hour wondering what to do with myself. There's an answer somewhere I'm sure of it. I'd like to find it.