Life

Life

A Rich Life

It seems like all talk round these parts has been on $$$ over the last few weeks, what with the lottery and crazy amounts of cash being thrown around this town making a handful of people millionaires.

Yes, the Mega Millions came and went. I wasn’t a winner and neither were my coworkers. Me and my five bucks went into the game knowing nothing would come of it. Still, it was nice for a few hours to go through the motions with the rest of the nation- standing in line at the 7-11 drinking suicide Slurpees, making a lottery pool and dreaming big.

My favorite part of the whole affair (besides the Slurpees- TEETHROT) was listening to everyone’s “If I won the lottery…” dreams. Beyond the usual houses, donations and travel aspirations there were also a few very quirky labor of love enterprises: rock climbing gyms, musical theater restaurants, whimsical research foundations and so on. It all lead to some very interesting conversations about personal motivation, sense of self and obligations to one’s community. Even within that last question there are so many things to think about. How do you define community? Where does your heart and sense of service lie? Do you only help your family? Your friends? People who do the same work as you? People who have the same problems as you? How do you spread your wealth in order to do the most good? And on, and on…

My own dreams felt to me to be quite humble, perhaps for lack of imagination, or perhaps because I am feeling grateful for things as they are. Some scary health concerns have been popping up around the edges of my friends’ lives, which has me holding my breath and feeling an extra long lasting sense of thankfulness. It’s so weird. I’m just really really glad that right now everybody I care about is healthy and happy, and that’s enough.

Anyways, back to the question. How would I choose to live my life with $$$$$$? Most likely I would pay off my debts, live a bicoastal lifestyle interspersed with occasional travel, take care of my mom financially, revamp a few ASPCA shelters, open a bunch of grocery stores in food deserts and start a publishing house where I could give the green light on books that nobody will read…

The thing that amuses me about my dreams and the dreams of others is that most things that we mentioned are totally doable, right here, right now. Grocery store leases and the fact that nobody reads books aside, every day I can be making real headway on the things that I want, and so can my friends. The only thing stopping us it seems is fear, not money. Happiness is here and now if we do the work.

Art, Life

Daily Doodle: Impressions

Today I finally dug my Wacom tablet out of my closet. Lately I’ve been feeling more and more ridiculous for owning a pricey tablet but never touching it. What can I say? I don’t draw much anymore. I go through cycles of art and craft. Drawing has always been a part of my life, but after I’d been doing comics in the school paper for a while I totally burnt out. The same thing happened to me and knitting after I worked in a yarn shop for a while. I just had to step away. Then I got into food. I cooked, ate out, then started a blog about cooking and eating. Then I burnt out. I sense a pattern here 🙂

While learning new crafts is great, the excitement and the fizzle I experience every time makes me wonder. One of my deeper insecurities is that I’ll always be a bit of a dabbler in life, good enough at quite a few things but never particularly excelling in anything. I know that this fear is far from true (I mean, I can make SOCKS, and if that isn’t success, I don’t know what is), but hey insecurities are rarely grounded in reality, right?

Anyways, back to drawing. In the past I’ve used my tablet primarily for editing and coloring hand drawn stuff, so my freehand isn’t so great. As a bit of an experiment, I thought it would be fun to do a sketch a day on my tablet. It should improve my hand eye coordination. Or is it hand-eye-laptop-tablet coordination? >_< I’ll try to post something everyday for the short term future, but no promises.

Here’s day one: I quickly scribbled myself, then went to town  with the impressionist brush feature. I need more definition around the neck and my proportions are a bit off, but besides that I think I look very peaceful! I really look like my dad, sheesh.

 

Food, Life

David Chang on Failure, Loyalty, Risk

I saw this interview mentioned in passing in a tweet by Michael Pollan. Clicking through, I was expecting something a bit fluffy and pretentiously foodie, but whoa! I was really surprised by David Chang’s depth and honesty in this interview. He covers a few of my favorite topics: failure, loyalty and risk. Oh, let’s also not forget love, truth and honesty. Wow, he’s worse than Dear Sugar 🙂

Seriously though, it’s well worth 17 minutes of your time. Watch it all!

Life

Doppelgangers

Thomas took this great picture of our doppelgangers in Vietnam. I mean, the hair, the wizard sleeves, the collarbones… that’s me in another life. And the stance, the backpack…? That is so Thomas. I wish he had taken a picture of the guy’s shoes, I know he must be wearing flip flops.

Bizarre but amusing to imagine myself as her! She’s got a different life for sure.

 

Life

Back to Basics

I’ve started meditating again. It’s time. There are several different ways that I go about it.

1)When I’m feeling ambitious I practice zazen, which I learned back in college. Basically I sit completely still and try to focus on my breathing, counting from 1-10, over and over. When thoughts come up, I acknowledge them, let them go and then get back to the counting. I’ve never really gotten much out of sitting zen, but I like how challenging it is to still both the body and mind. Try it- it’s hard to get to 10 without 3 different thoughts popping up in your head.

2) Something that I’m finding a bit more useful than zen is the process of “breathing through” my pain and emotions. I read about the idea on Dear Sugar, an online advice column that I discovered last month and have since become obsessed with. When I’m feeling overcome with emotion, I focus on the person/event/emotion, then breathe in deeply with intention, hold it for a second, and then actively blow the feeling out. Over and over and over.

Blow out rejection. Breathe in understanding. Blow out fear. Breathe in hope. Blow out loneliness, pain, confusion, anxiety, what if’s?, anger, regret, longing, etc. My feelings aren’t gone by a long shot, but I know that I’m making progress with each breath. It’s hard to explain how it works. I feel like through the breathing I’m getting a handle on overwhelming things in my life and applying time and effort into accepting them.

3)I’ve never tried mantra meditation before. However, I have stumbled across a mantra for myself.

I was listening to some list on Spotify, maybe it was top albums or something like that, and the Quiet Company album came up. I started listening to it randomly, and I came across the song “Are you a mirror?” It’s a song about a father expressing hope and love for his new baby. Of course it took me about three takes to realize it was about a CHILD, because I was so walloped by the chorus: ” I look inside you and I see myself.” The first time I heard it I instantly thought “that’s how I feel love.” When I feel real compassion, deep understanding and connection with a person, I guess I call it love. Romantic love/friendship/familial love- it all boils down to this same feeling.

I could stand to cultivate more of this feeling in my life, so throughout the day as I interact with all things living I think my mantra silently to myself.

  • I’m eating a Super Duper burger outside the BART stop, keeping pigeons from getting at the crumbs: I look inside you, and I see myself.
  • I’m buying coffee from the barista I try to avoid at Starbucks, the real catty one who labeled my breakfast sandwich “Crazy”: I look inside you, and I see myself.
  • I’m on the phone with an elderly lady in Connecticut, haggling over the bill for my knee: I look inside you, and I see myself.

Baby steps, baby steps.