by Jamesscotthenson | Oct 6, 2016 | Blog
People still tell me how unique and individualistic I was as
a kid. I am pretty sure this is code for weird and obnoxious, but I’m pretty
okay with it by now.
Rather than being unique, I think I was probably attention
seeking, as kids tends to do. I needed to think I was special, I was cool,
etc., etc.
I did the same thing as a teenager, but in different ways. I
learned that much of what made me unique in a small town in the mountains also
made me a target once we moved to a much larger city and Nirvana landed on the
scene. So, I made sure I fit in, but I tried to be unique by doing stupid
things and telling stories about myself. I am sure more than a few people saw
through this.
The thing is, most people won’t question my wanting to be
different and be an individual and be unique. They may question how I went
about it because it was disingenuous and contrived, but not the desire in itself.
We accept that individualism is automatically a good thing and that it is
natural.
Maybe I am running out of ideas after just 15 days, but I do
wonder if we made a wrong turn when we decided that individualism is the norm
for humans.
I read about old cultures and religions a lot, and it seems
that in our earlier times as a species we were much less individualistic and
more focused on the whle. Many times there weren’t even ways of thinking about
about oneself as an individual.
Quick note: I am not one who romanticizes old
cultures/tribal lifestyles, etc. I bordered on Anarcho-Primitivism for a while,
but it doesn’t take much reading about tribal blood feuds, horrific medical
care and 25-year life expectancy to realize we have it pretty good now.
My question is more about how we might be able to
incorporate the good that comes from seeing oneself as part of a greater whole
into our modern, and increasingly atomized, society. Sebastion Junger has done
some really cool work on how our lonely society breeds PTSD in returning
veterans and how Peace Corp volunteers fall into deep depressions when they
come back to this country.
I hear it from clients all the time too. One of the most
difficult things to help people with in Lubbock is finding a social group,
especially if you are post-college or don’t like churches or bars. We stay
inside our air-conditioned homes and watch televisions in separate rooms and
drive in our own cars and listen to our own music through our earbuds.
Actually, that last one is good. People who play their music
out loud where everyone else has to listen to it should be exiled into the
wilderness to starve or be eaten.
I cannot say I do a good job of seeking out larger
communities to belong to. I am a distinctly bad friend who never wants to do
anything. I like to be home, inside, with my family, and that’s that. I am
working on this, but it is difficult for some reason. I know it would be good
to have a larger community and be more involved, but I resist it.
One thing I can say though, is that learning to see myself
as part of a family, instead of as an individual in a family, has done wonders
for me. I can honestly say that everything I do is for my family, and this
makes everything much easier. It gives me strength and energy and makes everything
worth it. When I do things for Barbara or Tyler or Max, they are easy. I don’t
struggle with them. When I do things for myself, I do.
There has to be something to that.
by Jamesscotthenson | Oct 5, 2016 | Blog
Smudgy mirrors always distort reality.
When I am teaching meditation I liken the mind to a mirror.
It doesn’t perceive reality, only reflects it. It is our job to keep the mirror
as clean as we can. Things like stress, a lack of sleep, poor choices and our
past experiences tend to smudge the mirror up, and the reflection becomes
blurry.
It’s been a while since I’ve experienced exhaustion and a feeling of overwhelm strong enough to push me into a negative frame of mind, but I did this weekend. I still feel it today, but the difference is that for the last two days I had a hard time seeing out of it, and started to believe it was real. I struggled this whole weekend, I was difficult to deal with, and the world felt like a darker place than it usually is. I made the mistake of thinking the smudgy mirrors were a true reflection.
I have a tendency to run myself ragged, to say yes to
everything and to try to do everything. I don’t like telling people no when
they need help, and I don’t feel like I have any business turning down an
opportunity, whether it be at work or to learn something new or work on
something.
I like to make every minute count as much as I can, I want
to be productive and useful and helpful to those around me. I don’t want to
waste time spinning my wheels.
I can be a little obsessive about it.
The problem with all of this is that it is hard to maintain in the face of real-life issues. Sure, it all works wonderfully so long as I can keep everything lined up the way I need it to be, but it only takes a tiny disruption to cause a ripple effect that turns into a tsunami.
A certain little boy cries all night, and instead of a few days of being tired it ripples into complete exhaustion bordering on a depression. I get a little sick, something that I would normally shrug off, but it grows into something that wipes me out. Medium-sized projects start to seem huge and big projects become impossible. Small annoyances trick me into thinking they are actual issues and begin to bother me. Actual serious issues make me want to crawl in a hole and die.
All of this happens when we aren’t intentional with our time, including being intentional with how we spend our time off (or when we aren’t giving ourselves time off at all). I usually do pretty well with this, I see it coming and I step back for a minute. I know the signs that emerge in me when I am pushing it a little too hard.
Smudgy mirrors.
I start to crave sugar, even more than I already do. I start
waking up after about 4 hours of sleep, and I don’t go back to sleep. I want to
watch more television or play video games. I start to think other people aren’t
pulling their weight and I feel resentful. I start to feel like I am trapped.
The whole world becomes just a little bit darker, and I believe it.
This is the crux of the whole thing though: nothing has
changed. Everything is the same as it was. I have the same great life, the same
great family, the same great job. I am still headed the same great direction
and I wouldn’t change a thing, but my perception shapes my reality, and in
these situations, mine has become cloudy. The mirror is making the room look
ugly, even though the room is exactly like it was when I was happy with it.
So, I step back. I take some time off, and I move forward. I
apologize to those I need to apologize to, step away from unnecessary
commitments and try to give myself some space to breathe.
In short, I clean the mirror, and I try to remember to be mindful of smudges. They aren’t an accurate reflection of anything.
Want more? I write a lot. I also have a podcast and post videos and mini-blogs on Instagram.
by Jamesscotthenson | Oct 4, 2016 | Blog
I remember saving up my money for a few months to get a
Walkman because I saw an older kid with one. I would daydream about how cool I
would look, walking around town listening to my music. How awesome it would be
when an older kid asked what I was listening to and realized I was a pretty rad
little kid because I was rocking Def Leppard or Motley Crue. I pictured riding
my bike, weaving in and out of traffic, Skid Row blaring over the sound of
honking horns. It was going to be the best thing ever.
After many months, I got my Walkman.
And it was everything it promised to be.
I ruled the world, stomping around in my over-sized neon
pants, giant hoodies and spiked hair, so gelled up it would make you bleed if
you touched it. I listened to it everywhere I went, sticking extra cassettes in
my pockets in case I needed something different. There are times that call for
Cinderella instead of Poison.
And I listened to full albums, not just the hits or songs I
liked. There was no skipping from song to song, this was even before the
technology to fast forward from one song to the next. You listened to the whole
thing or dealt with the hassle of trying to find that 2 second gap of silence
between them, and you wore your batteries out trying.
But you found songs on the album you never knew about. The
whole album was part of your experience, not just certain songs.
It was like this with television too. You watched what was
on, when it was on, or you missed it. I came up with thousands of reasons to
skip church on Wednesday nights when Clash of the Champions was on.
You couldn’t order whatever you wanted off the internet, so
you spent time digging around in stores and saving your money for when you got
to go to a comic book store in Albuquerque.
In short, everything wasn’t set up so that I could stay
wrapped up in a little bubble of the things I liked, and I was forced to wait
on things, and I was forced to give space to different stuff.
I am not sure we are cut out for having the power to choose
everything. I wonder if I miss out on things because I am able to pick and
choose what I consume.
All of this choice can keep me locked in to specific
viewpoints if I let it. I can choose to focus exclusively on Alternet and
Patheos and MSNBC and CNN, or I can only deal with with Breitbart and Fox News
and Prison Planet and The Drudge Report and never change what I think. I can
only read about how vaccines cause autism or only about how they saved the day.
I can convince myself that the earth is flat or 6000 years old or 4 billion
years old or a computer simulation, and I can feed these views exclusively
because the world is one big echo chamber if I want it to be.
Maybe we aren’t cut out for so much choice, or maybe we just
need to be conscious about how we use it.
by Jamesscotthenson | Oct 3, 2016 | Blog
This is a second draft; the original tone did not make it
past my editor. In retrospect, I understand.
If you know me or if we are friends on Facebook, you know
that I love being a dad. Having kids is the greatest thing ever, but they are
either a crash course in acceptance or a doctoral level degree in resentment.
Apart from a few 20- 30 minute stretches, Max cried all last
night. It wasn’t a whimper or sob either, but a full blown wailing,
something-is-wrong kind of cry. He and I stayed up until 12:30, and then were
back up for about 45 minutes or so in the middle of the night, and I know I saw
B get up with him at least twice. I was already exhausted and hoping to catch
up on a little bit of sleep this weekend, but I’ve learned children often give
us the opposite of what we think we need.
So, I sit here this morning (he started crying again at
6:00), and I can acknowledge that I am very tired, I have a dull headache, my
neck and shoulder hurts from holding him so much (he’s a chunk), my throat
hurts (no idea why this seems to happen when I am really tired) and I am a
little shaky. I have this vague sense of anxiety that always accompanies being
tired for me, I am not sure why this is present either. I may even be having
slight attitude problems.
My mind wants to tell me that this is bad, that I need this
and I need that, but it’s an illusion. My awareness is untouched, and
everything is fine. No matter how I feel, at least I am here to feel something.
We take existing for granted for some reason, and it leads us to think that we
actually get to judge the contents of existence. I am grateful to be here to
experience anything, and that makes all of this unpleasantness fade into the
scenery where it belongs.
This applies to everything for me. All the hassles of
raising kids, all the time and effort and money and sleeplessness is part of
the scenery, and it is part of the scenery involved in helping another human
being learn to live on this planet, which is a pretty cool job. We all have
scenery; we get to decide whether or not to judge it.
What happens when we can step back from the stories about
experience, and simply allow ourselves to be aware of experience itself? How is
our judgment of experience serving us?
by Jamesscotthenson | Oct 2, 2016 | Blog
I am amazed at how little consciousness I have lived with
for most of my life. I will be shocked with how little I live with now when I
am in my 50s.
At least I hope so.
I like to try and pay attention to the little things around
me to help me stay in the moment, and by doing this I have become more aware of
just how much the world is set up for me.
Here’s a list from just what is currently within reach:
I am sitting in a comfortable chair, that we did a lot of
shopping to find so that it would rock, but that didn’t have a high back that
would push on my head or neck. I have a heating pad on my neck, that helps a
lot and was like $6.
I am typing on a laptop that I carry with me everywhere I go
and which does everything I need it to do. I can type these blogs, publish them
online, record podcasts and do all the accounting and billing for my office
with it.
My laptop is sitting on a bamboo lap desk I was able to
order from Amazon after Max broke my first one by stomping on it. He did the
same to this one, but I was able to use duct tape to put it back together. The
tape serves double duty by acting as a grip pad to keep my laptop from sliding
around on the lap desk. Pretty perfect.
My phone is on the arm of my chair. While I often hate it
very much, it is a great convenience to have. I use it to keep my schedule
straight, run credit, debit and HSA cards, look things up online, listen to
podcasts, reply to texts and emails (I am, admittedly, not great about this),
call the people I love (I also suck at this) and, when I feel like doing
nothing play Wordbase with a woman in Nevada or Trivia Crack with people all
over the place. Come play me, I’m pretty ok at it. I like hoarding coins and
spins. I also use it to take pictures of my family and text reminders to
clients about appointments, which has cut down on no-shows.
I just used a remote control to turn on my TV, and another
remote to turn on my PS3 to go to YouTube, where I can listen to all the music
I want for free. I can control the volume, switch to Netflix or Amazon or the WWE
Network (yep, not ashamed) or start playing a video game (currently The Stick
of Truth and Minecraft), all without having to get out of the chair I started
this list with.
My briefcase is on the floor next to me. It has two locks so
I can carry notes and documents, and is easy to take anywhere. It lets me carry
my iPad, where I actually do all of my notes and then automatically upload them
to a server, my laptop, a Moleskine, a little bag with all my cords and my
Kindle everywhere I go.
Don’t even get me started on my Kindle. I have 123 books on
it, it weighs as much as a Saltine and it has a light that doesn’t burn my
retinas out when I read it while Max is falling asleep. Barbara got it for me,
I love it.
All of this is just within arm’s reach, maybe I will expand
outward over the next few days.
Think about how much of this world is set up for us, how
many things have been done for us by people who came before us. Think about how
many goods and services are produced by people we will never see or meet.
It’s a friendly world, so much more goes right than wrong. I
find I am much happier when I spend the limited amount of time I have on this
planet noticing these things, rather than all the bullshit that is thrown at us
to sell us a product or ideology or leader by making us insecure and fearful.
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