December 5 – Let Go.

What (or whom) did you let go of this year? Why?

(Author: Alice Bradley)

Fair warning, I’m thinking this is going to be a length entry.

Recommended playlist:

• All American Rejects - It Ends Tonight
• Dashboard Confessional - Vindicated
• Relient K - Who I Am Hates Who I’ve Been (Acoustic)

When I first read this prompt, I thought “Man, I’m going to have a lot to say about this.”  Now I wish I’d written my thoughts down sooner, because two days later I’m straining to recapture that same passion. 

Sunday I was tired from not enough sleep, too much sun (this is Florida, what’s a ‘winter’? I got burned) and too much social contact.  Part of me loves being social in groups, but prolonged and sustained time together can wear on anyone I think.  I’ve read how necessary it is to always take time after a new experience to reflect on the results in order to grow, and I think that’s part of the social cycle. 

In any case, I was cranky and one of my cranky thoughts was how close I’ve come to just letting go of all my ties, walking away from my family and my closest friends, and just trying to start anew elsewhere. (I’m stuck in a geographical rut)  When I’m cranky and antisocial it seems inviting, but even two days later I can see how sad and unhappy that choice would leave me.  It can be so tempting to walk away from problems and responsibilities, to stop putting in the effort required to either accomplish or avoid commitments, but quitting has costs too, and those costs are rarely immediately apparent.

Often, when we’re upset or frustrated, we lash out at those around us.  I think as a parent you have to overcome this pretty quickly, because your offspring is so helpless, but as an non-propagating adult I haven’t learned those lessons in patience yet.  But even without children I have learned to try not to lash out at those around me, because most of them are trying to support me, help me, and need my help too.  We’re all only human, even the people we admire most, whose talents or virtues tempt us to instill a double standard.

This leads me to a tough subject, one of the hardest things I’ve struggled with letting go of this year.  I decided this year that I had to let go of my connection with my best friend, because I was relying too heavily on one single friendship, and it wasn’t healthy for me or for him. 

You might think, “But you’re best friends, that’s what friends are for!” 

That could be, but I’ve never been convinced that I’m good at friendships so maybe you know better.  I do know that over the years my best friend and I have been leaders, friends, roommates, and brothers.  All of these shared experiences have lead to a strong bond and a strong understanding, but also problems.  When we were roommates I would often get frustrated or upset because unspoken expectations went unfulfilled, or something innocuous was mistaken to be an intentional slight, and the result was a lot of unfounded animosity.  I had anger with my best friend that I had no outlet for, and who could I talk with about it?

Over the years people have remarked how we share a relationship akin to romantic partners or at least married partners, but the irony is such a relationship would have been easier in some aspects I think.  At least a romantic partner is able to use physical affection to express themselves, and at the end of the day there is a root attraction that keeps a romantic relationship together.  With a friend, the attraction is on an intellectual level, you’re attracted to qualities in a friend that you wish you could adopt in your own life.  Aristotle put it better than anyone else I’ve ever read, but basically writes that the best friendships are based on finding the best in someone else and doing what we can to promote it.

So why would I need to “let go” of my best friend this year? Well I don’t mean that we completely cut all ties and parted ways, but instead I’ve been struggling to let go of my unrealistic expectations I’ve developed for our friendship. Our modern society teaches us that relying heavily on the emotional and social support of one person is ideal; We must find one partner to share life’s joys and struggles with, but this is not called the friends forever model, it’s called marriage. 

I realized in our friendship,  we were filling a social void in each other’s lives that was intended for a rewarding romantic relationship. Which was unhealthy.  Going places and doing things with a friend is nice, but if you go everywhere and do everything with that friend, how can either of you hope to be available to new connections? 

Over the summer we had been roommates for the second time, an arrangement that was mutually convenient, but after I moved home again I realized that not only was I leaning too heavily on my friend, but I was hindering him in the process.  Our friendship wasn’t an agreement to bear such a burden.  From Aristotle’s standpoint I had stopped being part of a friendship that was “useful and good, based on admiration of one another’s virtue”, and instead was enjoying a friendship of utility, where I was abusing a bond into acting as a crutch for my benefit.

I know my friend well enough to hear his argument against my thoughts already.  He would argue that from his standpoint he gains equally from my acquaintance, that our shared experiences are consensual (how suggestive that sounds! I mean here experiences like going to a comic book store, or playing video games), and that as an adult he would speak up for himself if he felt the need. 

Perhaps it is arrogant of me to think that I know what is best for someone else, and the “for their own good” aspect of my “letting go” is condescending and pompous of me.  Condescending and Pompous are certainly in my repertoire, just look at the language I use when I write defensively above, lol.  

But even under a strong counter-argument, the fact remains that I think I’m disabling myself from growing, from moving on, from finding greater happiness.  I don’t have too much modesty, except when I think of a prospective employer reading this, so I can openly admit that I enjoy physical affection.  I’d say being physically close with another person in an intimate way that conveys trust and admiration is in my top five favorite things to do in the whole world.  (Perhaps also Reading, Eating pasta dishes, and Snowboarding) 

The idea that I am denying myself that pleasure is painful. I think that kind of “pursuit of happiness” is something that all people strive for, it’s certainly a freedom that can be denied to someone even if it’s not constitutional right (It’s in the US Declaration of Independence, which is not Law).   There are people in the world who are constrained by class, wealth, health, and the oppression of others such that they can’t pursue the things that make them happiest. 

I’m not one of those people.

While wallowing in my frustrations, self pity, doubt, and other minor tribulations I’m limiting myself, because I do have the freedom to pursue my joys.  No one has ever said directly to my face “you cannot do that, even if it makes you happy, I say no” (well I couldn’t eat ALL those cookies anyway Mom).  We build our own prisons, impose our own limitations, and this year, under the auspices of letting my best friend go, I started to let go of my prison.

I’m not done yet, there’s a lot of internal and external walls to go.  Social constructs and childhood lessons, perceived pressure to succeed, to excel, to conform, and to perform.  All kinds of walls that have been put into place to govern thought and behavior.  We adopt them from our parents and peers, and from within ourselves.   I don’t fault myself here, we each form these walls to protect ourselves and to learn to “fit in” to our societies, that’s normal human behavior.  However, I think it is a serious issue in modern American society that our influences create too many boundaries and limitations, whether they’re public schools, the industries of our career fields, our familial traditions, or our religious institutions.

I warned that this would be a long entry, and I decided not to include ancillary people or habits that I’ve let go.  I’ve given up fears, dreams, opportunities, and pent up anger… but I have to make one more point. 

If you’re participating in Reverb 2010 as well this year, perhaps it’s because you feel lost.  You feel the need to reflect and grow.  Have your own imposed limitations become so great that this opportunity immediately spoke to you?  If so, I hope you continue to reflect on what you can afford to “let go” of in your life, and see how much bigger the world can be afterward.

December 4 – Wonder. How did you cultivate a sense of wonder in your life this year? (Author: Jeffrey Davis)

Alright, this one almost broke my resolve to participate in Reverb10, I have to admit.  When I first read this prompt on Saturday I thought “Really? These prompts are starting to sound like a condescending sunday-school teacher asking “Rain. Why did God flood the whole earth except for Noah and his family?”  The prompt was not only too broad for me to be tempted but it also hinted at a certain level of empty kool-aid cup that I wasn’t sure I was thirsty for. 

Saturday during the day I went to my alma mater’s college (American) football conference championship.  I graduated from the University of Central Florida (UCF), which just made it into the BCS rankings for the first time ever.  We’re also the second largest University in the United States with ~45,000 students in enrollment, so it’s kind of a big school.  I went there for 8 years as I bounced among nearly every possible undergraduate course trying to find my direction and career.  (Ultimately I gave up on finding a future and decided to take the shortest path out that resulted in a degree, wasting about two hundred additional credit hours in the process) Anyway, beyond all that tangent, I went with some of my closest college friends to watch our football team clench the conference title, which was great.  It’s kind of like winning your league and getting invited to play at a special charity game because you’re a good team, if I had to compare it to any other sport.  It was a fun thrill because I went to most games as a student but only a handful since.

Afterward we went and had (more) beer and food while we watched other teams play their games on TV, some of my friends went to those schools for their undergrad or graduate degrees.

When we were done watching football we wanted to keep enjoying what was a very pleasant day and sought out some live music.  We went to Paddy Murphy’s Irish Pub in a highly developer-planned area of Orlando called Baldwin Park (previously a Naval training base, but was closed and sold off).  They had a band called Seven Nations (audio) scheduled to play and when they finally took the stage I realized I had an answer to the prompt.

I always turn to music to promulgate a sense of “wonder” in my life.  Music is a language that plays on our instincts and emotions, without a need for language or lyrics even.  Music is present in every known human culture, from modern tribes to ancient ones, because we react to rhythms and sounds on a basic level.  In our current times we’re able to carry all the music of the world in our pocket and hear it whenever we like, can you imagine being thrown back in time and having to wait for the social event of the year, a royal concert perhaps, to be the only music you hear?  I think my example is a little extreme, I bet the boy in a nearby stable had a flute or something, but I’m just trying to say we’re very lucky.

I like music when I’m doing manual labor, I like music when I’m writing, I like music when I’m exercising, when I’m showering, and sometimes even when I’m trying to fall asleep.  And the style and sounds in those situations are diverse, evoking such a range of emotion.

However, for the real sense of “Wonder”, nothing beats live music.  Live music is controlled by the musician, their soul guides their practiced hands and mouths into producing a second voice and your only choice is to listen, rapt, to the message.  It’s like a primal game to unravel a secret code or hidden cypher, to get the story the musician is trying to convey.  Whether it’s a band of bagpipes, guitar, and violin, or a single woman and a microphone, there’s a spirit seeking kindreds willing to listen, and that creates a sense of Wonder in me every time.

Unfortunately, I tried to use Tumblr’s handy phone-in audio entry service, and it did connect, but it didn’t record the band playing, so my intention to at least augment this with a sample of Seven Nations’ music was unsuccessful, but I was surprised at the end of the day that I had not only my sense of Wonder for the evening, but that events had played out to remind me just how much I value it every day.

December 3 – Moment. Pick one moment during which you felt most alive this year. Describe it in vivid detail (texture, smells, voices, noises, colors). (Author: Ali Edwards)

I read this prompt just after I woke up today, and it’s now a few hours after I should have gone to bed. Unfortunately, nothing has stood out.  I’ve done a fair amount of reflecting all day long.  I thought maybe some of the time on the brief cruise to the Bahamas I took with four good friends would provide a suitable moment, or perhaps a later trip to Key West that was extremely fun, and I even went back through some of the time from when I was working, which provided a lot of fulfillment and some exciting challenges, but I didn’t have any of those “this is what life is about” moments this year, at least ones that come to mind in a day’s reflection.

What I do have to share is how much time I also spent reflecting on what that might mean.  As soon as I began struggling with this prompt I started to suspect that there were some personal flaws that were being ignored as contributory.  Two things I thought of were whether spending time on the internet exposes me to so many ideas and experiences and instant information that my interactions in the real world are perceived through atrophied or “deadened senses”.  I bet there are some ways to test for such things, and I may even look into them.

The other culprit at work here is just a case of my own memory.  I remember events as a series of facts that describe the situation, but I don’t reflect on my long term memory often, and I don’t think I recall emotional response at all.  Part of this may be a male natural response, an instinct for recollection of numbers and locations but a detachment from feelings that might impair judgment.  How cold that sounds.  I’m a very emotional guy by my own reckoning.  I’d guess I’ve teared up fifty times this year, but I can’t recall for you what I was doing or watching at the time specifically.  This might seem very strange to you, I know it did for an ex-girlfriend many years back.  It was a harsh lesson to learn that people who are closest want to know more about your history then you’re use to recalling and sharing, but withholding that connection can drive them away.

Yesterday I didn’t include the prompt verbatim, I will for the remaining entries.

December 2 Writing.
What do you do each day that doesn’t contribute to your writing — and can you eliminate it?
(Prompt Author: Leo Babauta)

I read the prompt around 2:00 today but let my mind just work on my reply throughout the afternoon, while I checked e-mails and read Gawker, while I cooked tonight’s Chicken Pot Pie, when I was helping to decorate the Christmas tree, and when I was reading my friend Sarah’s entry for today.   My point is, all day while I was focusing on those things, I was pondering the prompt and my response, and that’s how it is with writing.  During last month’s Novel writing program I would occasionally pose questions to myself about my characters, or I would do something with friends and I would wonder how to fictionalize the experience and incorporate it into the story. 

Are there things I could cut back on to allow me to focus better on actually writing things down, yes of course.  I would immediately point out that I enjoy playing Facebook games and seeing what new games people are into, I like computer and console video games as well.  I read my twitter twice a day, which is a lot like sitting and reading the newspaper because of all the linked articles and videos.  However, the gaming is a part of who I am, I’m inquisitive and exploring video games helps to satisfy my curiosity, and the interactions I have with people on Facebook and Twitter help me feel connected and contributing to the world, even if it’s in the smallest way.

The critic in my mind immediately suggests that I could contribute so much more if I focused my efforts into one field or one project and carried it through to completion, and I agree, but that’s not how social human beings operate.  We rely on one another, and have expectations, sometimes without even voicing them.  There are things that would distract me no matter how strictly I tried to force writing, and in my experience that kind of writing might produce a lot of ideas but not a lot of continuity or unity in the product.  For example, see this entry rushed to complete by midnight.

I read today about a new computer called CLARION that solves problems the way people do, not the way computers do.  What was most interesting to me in the article was that when they interrupted or distracted the computer, it’s results were more often like the outcomes of the human mind.  Having to multitask and handle everything at once is part of our human experience and I think keeping the writing process true to that experience is one of the stepping stones to good writing, instead of just volume.

Now, putting my own stubbornness aside, there are authors from previous time periods who didn’t have all the information age to distract them and they came up with thousands of stories and characters just fine, and made it a habit to write daily.  All I can say to that point is, I wrote most days each week in November, and in #Reverb10 I will write each day, so it’s a habit I’m working on, slowly.

Also, I struggle to be more succinct. Bear with me.

The very first prompt for this year’s Reverb project calls for me to summarize 2010 in a single word.  Well I think that’s fairly easy:

Slow

Why was 2010 slow, despite the magic of being named after Arthur C. Clarke’s Odyssey II? Well, mostly because it took me half the year to get a job, another month to get a place to live, and then by the end of the year I was out of the job and the home.  So, from a fiscal point of view not a lot happened, I pretty much broke even.   Did I grow from it all, maybe a little, but not as much as I could have in other settings.  And if I’m forced to stop distracting myself with the wonders of technology and the joy of friends, I am able to take full responsibility for how slow 2010 was, the lack of personal growth and development.  It was always my choice and not making decisions is one of the options.

So what would I like 2011 to be?  Well, I think it’s a stretch to go directly into huge success, but I see no reason not to be overly optimistic in a self-reflection blog posting.  I would like 2011 to be Enriching, on both a personal and financial level I want it to be a year to reap rewards.  There’s a lot of little things I can do for myself, like continue to diet and exercise so I have better self-image, socialize with new friends more and try to bring old friends out of their routines as well, or let them be content and not consider that any failure on my part.  I think devoting more income into savings would let me start feeling more confident about my 30s, which aren’t close but they’re near, in a “how far away are the hyenas” sense of distance.  Also, the romantic endeavors of this year were lackluster at best.  I was in full control of those reins and scorned most advances and let many opportunities pass.  If it takes some reflection on why that was, then I should make that a priority as well, because having an enriching but lonely year doesn’t appeal very much, even in slow 2010.