Posts Tagged ‘self analysis’
Relatively Nothing
Asked: Now what are you up to?
Answered: I’m interviewing myself.
Asked: Why would you want to go and do that?
Answered: Well, umm… I don’t really know why. Maybe because, well, why not?
Asked: Don’t you already know the answers to questions that you are asking yourself?
Answered: That’s a really good question, and I’m glad you asked it. You see, for a long time, there have been rumblings that I’m just making this whole thing up. That, on days when nothing particularly noteworthy has occurred, I just wing it and pull some silly idea out of my butt and start typing about it. Sometimes, my fingers end up doing more work than my brain. Wait. What was the question again?
Asked: I think you answered it without even realizing it. Do you have an example of something that you just start typing about?
Answered: For sure. Just a second ago, probably while you were writing that question, I glanced out the door toward the tree branches beyond our deck, and something caught my eye. Some movement. It seemed big and up in the branches, so I imagined there might be an owl or an eagle in our trees. It’s always a thrill to see an owl, and my heartbeat quickened as I stared, looking for additional movement. I was soon rewarded with additional flashes of movement, and I recognized immediately what I was seeing. It was a reflection in the glass of the door whenever Cyndie moved around in the kitchen.
Asked: I don’t even know how to respond to that. Let me ask you this: What are you thinking about right now?
Answered: I’m wondering if my goal of posting something every day sometimes insults the intelligence of my readers when I wander off in some pseudo-creative endeavor in avoidance of admitting I just lolled around all day, rubbing sandpaper over a wood sculpture, watching comedic storytellers on Netflix, walking Asher around on our property, cleaning up after the horses, and taking a nap in the middle of the afternoon.
One of my favorite things, in case you were going to ask me that, is when I hear an involuntary chuckle out of Cyndie when I ask her to proofread one of my posts. I rarely intend to be entirely serious in my writing, and eliciting even a simple smile in a reader’s response would mean I am accomplishing something I set out to do. I don’t set out to do all that much these days, so that ranks high on bringing me quality of life.
Asked: Are you trying to say you are getting old without saying it?
Answered: Hah! No. Okay, yeah. (That reminds me of a dear friend who was skilled at the art of answering to many things with, “Yeah, no.” For some reason, I found that to be very endearing.) Of all the many ways my aging is increasingly making itself known to me, there is one that is both appreciated and horrifying. I suppose it helps that I am now retired because I have no reason to make myself presentable every morning. I rarely shave or comb my tangled curls. By avoiding mirror time, which is a wonderfully rewarding thing for me, I reap the horrifying results of unsightly hair growth from my nose, ears, and eyebrows in amounts that make me recoil to see. That just leads to more avoidance of the mirror. It’s a vicious cycle.
Asked: Please stop.
Answered: Gladly. However, that reminded me of a story. Maybe I can tell it tomorrow if nothing interesting happens between now and then.
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Life Stories
I have begun reading some of the stories Nathan Vass has written that describe scenes he has witnessed and exchanges he has had with others as a Metro bus driver in Seattle. From his words, I can immediately sense the love and respect he holds for the people he describes from his encounters. It swiftly pulls me toward loving them, too, more than a thousand miles and multiple years away from the origin of his stories.
Most of my stories lately end up describing the weather, my projects, our horses, or our pets. Occasionally, Cyndie’s or my embarrassing foibles provide fodder for a re-telling. It is hard for me to know if my tales are relative to something for those of you following, but I hope you sense the love I have for the range of subjects chronicled.
Over the holiday, I found myself on multiple occasions sharing descriptions of my experience with depression, the circumstances leading to a diagnosis, and the success of my subsequent treatment. The earnestness of my listeners flushed out more detail than I would normally venture to burden any one person with at a social gathering.
In one case, there was a surprised interest in the concept of depression being curable. I tend to consider myself “depression-free” with the adjunct of practicing a life-long antidote of daily thoughts and actions to maintain good health.
Writing something about my life every day is one component of my regimen, but I don’t write about my experience with depression every day. My stories are more of a reflection of not being depressed. That doesn’t make me forget about what it is like to struggle with depression.
I suppose that is one reason I feel love for the lives depicted in some of Nathan’s stories. When the situation he describes reveals symptoms of depression, I empathize.
There are moments of depression in almost every life at one time or another. We should all empathize.
Similar to the legend of feeding two wolves inside us, good vs. evil, and whichever we feed wins, I posit that bathing our brains in a chemical bath of positive, loving thoughts will produce much more desirable results than generating the chemicals of anxiety and negativity.
Consider this as you lay your head down to sleep for the night. What brain chemistry would you like to have generated as you are fading into dreamland?
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Me
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it was a dvd
mailed from Netflix
the old-fashioned way
a typical limited series gritty crime drama
deliriously slow character introductions
with more detail about unimportant activity
people unconsciously do
than any person would like to admit
then I tried to get on with my night
where each silly habit
became my personal behavior scenes
inane to the extreme
I couldn’t stop
folding the bag over
three times –no, four
to seal in freshness
measuring
packaging
preparing for tomorrow
the next gritty drama
that lay ahead
a show I’d rather not watch
except that it’s me
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Wood Speaks
Sometimes, wood speaks to me, but I don’t always know what it says. I can’t say that I’ve ever heard words from a piece of wood. It’s more of a mysterious attraction to the visual. This piece has me wondering what it would look like smoothed.
I have envisioned it both completely flat or smoothed with contours. I think contours is going to win, because there’s already too much material missing to sand it flat and still have much of the branch left. The branch is really the key element that makes this special.
Imagine how complicated it can be to stack firewood when every other piece seems to grab my attention for its potential to be beautiful in some form other than burning flames.
Luckily, I receive great pleasure from the visual presentation of stacked firewood, too, so it makes it a little easier for me to leave the split logs on the pile where they belong. That just leaves a chosen few that occasionally get pulled for more permanent duty.
I decided to take a picture of this one for reference, and now having posted here, I guess as incentive. I make no secret of my difficulty with finishing art projects that I start. It’s rather curious that my inspiration to become engaged with this new piece would occur so soon after discovering a handful of others in a box that had sat unopened since we moved here 3 years ago.
Why haven’t I become fixated on finishing the others, instead?
I don’t know. It’s something ripe for analysis, I suppose. I wouldn’t have to dig too deep to discover an issue with perfectionism and a fear of failure, I’m sure. Being unfinished, their imperfections are judged differently. Being unfinished, they still hold the potential to become even more beautiful than they already are.
Or it could simply be that I am wanting to improve my techniques and tooling, and hone my finishing skills to a point I will feel more prepared to take those unfinished pieces the rest of the way to completion, in both aesthetics and function.
Yeah. That’s why I’m starting another new project. It’s for practice. That’s it.
I’ll chronicle the progress for you here, so I have added incentive to actually make progress.
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Relative Something 