Category Archives: Other

Flying home from New Jersey

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Flying Northwest … bit of a crap shoot whether or not I’ll make it home reasonably on time.

I downloaded a whole bunch of beta software from http://ideas.live.com last night (9/14), including Live Writer, an offline blog editor. Have to say – it’s very pleasant to be able to write when I’m disconnected. That’s when I most want to write!

What have a learned this week? Well, I am trying to do a bit more than I am physically capable of doing. There are some positives …

For one, I’m starting to practice my violin again – turns out it’s not such a big deal to travel with it after all. Only negative is that I have to check luggage, but I can cope with that. Now, I’m no where close to being back in the rhythm of practicing – I’d like to get there, but it’s going to take a while. I guess right now, I’m in a stage where I’m carrying my violin around a lot – at least I’m reminded that I want to play, but I’m not actually setting up my life to remember to play every day, yet.

Similar deal with running – I’m still running but not quite as much as I would like. I’d really like to run 15-20 miles per week, and right now, I’m probably getting in 5-8 miles. I need to simplify some other aspects of my life to get that in.

And then there’s work. I had a good work week, but there are still so many to-do items that I didn’t get to. Something’s gotta give. I have to simplify things somehow.

I see two opportunities – one is simply quitting caffeine again. I allowed myself to start drinking coffee a few weeks ago, and it’s just diminishing returns for me. I have to get my sleep in, so caffeine isn’t going to allow me to get in a longer day. It ends up just making higher highs and lower lows. I don’t like it. Gotta get off it again. Simple.

The second thing is Internet browsing. I watch very little TV, but I haven’t really paid attention to how much time I spend following threads online. This is part of what I get paid for (researching technology), but if I look at the time I spend each day/evening, I lose more personal time to browsing than I would like. Gotta cut that down.

All of this is part of trying to get more of a rhythm to my life. My life is complicated, and I don’t necessarily want that to change. But if I am to find some kind of peace within my complicated life, then I need to find a rhythm, get used to the craziness, feel "right" about whatever I am doing at any given moment.

Lots of work to do.

On haiku

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When I did a Live Search (yes, Live Search … www.live.com … you don’t really think I would use Google, do you???) to confirm that the plural of haiku is indeed haiku, I discovered that I was missing some key aspects of this type of verse:
 
 
1.

a major form of Japanese verse, written in 17 syllables divided into 3 lines of 5, 7, and 5 syllables, and employing highly evocative allusions and comparisons, often on the subject of nature or one of the seasons.
 
Hey! I should be saying something about nature. Maybe even doing the allusion thing.
 
I’ll have to work on that.
 
Here’s some quick practice:
 
A drop of water
Piercing lake’s surface, once still
Now undulating
 
The middle line is challenging. Maybe it would be be better
 
The glass lake’s surface, once still
 
More allusive but redundant. Maybe
 
Piercing the glass lake surface
 
But then the element of time is gone, making the last line awkward. I kind of like it, though, so I’ll change the last line, and then I have to get back to work.
 
A drop of water
Piercing the glass lake surface

Wavy reflections

 
Didn’t quite make it, but hey, it’s just practice. Haiku is fun! It’s poetry that can be completed in 5 minutes …

Humor is the great tie-breaker

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Woody Allen has a new movie, Cassandra’s Dream. In an interview, the director talks about his view of life as a "tremendously tragic event." He says, "I do have a bleak, pessimistic view of life and man’s fate, the human condition, but I do feel there are some extremely amusing oases in that morass."
 
I don’t have a "bleak, pessimistic" view. I guess I have a balanced view. Kharmically, it would seem to me that an approximately equal number of good things and bad things will happen to anybody in this life. But you can have a sense of humor about anything, good or bad. I think that’s why there are so many images of the Buddha laughing … humor is the great tie-breaker of life. If you laugh through life, if you stay bemused, you can handle anything – and you’ll have some sense of enjoyment about the whole thing.

Memorial Day

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Whenever I meet soldiers, I thank them … I personally appreciate everyone who serves our country to protect our way of life.
 
Thank you to all who serve and especially to those who have paid the ultimate price.

The Way of the Superior Man

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The last couple of years have been difficult for me, but I read a book that really helped: The Way of the Superior Man, by David Deida.
 
The title is a tad goofy, but the book is amazing. I was shelf browsing on a particularly bad day when I read the first paragraph:
Most men make the error of thinking that one day it will be done. They think, "If I could work enough, then one day I could rest." Or, "One day my woman will understand something, and then she will stop complaining." Or, "I’m only doing this now so that one day I can do what I really want with my life." The masculine error is to think that eventually things will be different in some fundamental way. They won’t. It never ends. As long as life continues, the creative challenge is to tussle, play, and make love with the present moment while giving your unique gift.
Frankly, when I first read this in the store, I started crying, so I figured I better buy the book. Ever since, I have been on a journey toward becoming the man I want to be.
 
I think I’ve given away six copies of this book so far, and I intend to give away many more. It’s been that important to me.