Captain’s Log – Page 4

I, Jedi

I don’t want to be angry. I know, I know: I just wrote an entire blog post about getting back into the fight, but over the past few days I’ve been doing some thinking. I don’t want to be angry; I want to be passionate. And there is a difference.

The picture above is a very simple picture of the creature Jar Jar Binks from Star Wars: The Phantom Menace facing the viewer, sitting on a grid, leaning against a yellow crate on the right with a red crate on the left. He appears to be lost in thought, resting his head on his left hand with his legs splayed out in front of him. The image mirrors how I’ve felt the past few days.

Including the Binks picture is more than just illustration. It reminds me of the difference between the Jedi and the Sith, two opposing factions of Force users from the Star Wars universe. The difference I wish to discuss is the difference between anger and passion. The Sith, categorized as evil and dark, use anger as a pathway to power, and as a tool to wield power over others.

Jedi Master Yoda says the Dark Side of the Force is “easier, quicker: more seductive” just as anger which is “quick to join” in the heat of the moment. Much more subtle is the passion of the Jedi. Passion must be fed, it must be nurtured: cared for. Passion derives its strength from love, ultimately, and slowly builds into an explosive force (no space-pun intended).

For the uninitiated, the untrained, the unwary, and the impatient, anger can seem like passion, but it has an edge and a bite. It cuts and crushes, and ultimately exhausts, leaving a bitter shell behind. Passion fuels, paradoxically softens, like sand paper smoothing a rough edge leaving a gentle curve. Both produce heat, come at the expense of friction, but only passion boosts and allows its wielder to thrive.

I want passion. I reject anger. I know, I also quoted the OCB which says “be angry and sin not” but I don’t much like that translation or that connotation. I prefer a verse that says “be passionate, and not angry, which leads to sin” but I didn’t write the thing. At any rate, I don’t want the edge, the cutting force of anger to incite me to fight. I want to overcome with passion, and be overcome by it. I don’t want to fight. I want to be moving so powerfully that no one, or thing, could come close to fighting me, that it would be a futile waste of effort. I am not a violent person, and don’t wish to become one in the chase away from lethargy.

In the novelization of Star Wars: Revenge of the Sith, Master Jedi Obi-Wan Kenobi is described as a “devastating warrior” who would prefer to “sit alone in a quiet cave and meditate” and that is more akin to what I would be. So full of the Force of passion, that would I ever need to do battle. I’d be unmatched, but really, I’d want to be amidst the life-giving Force itself. Kenobi so disdains battle that he is known throughout the Clone Wars as the “Negotiator”: the fighter who prefers to talk. That’s exactly what I want to be, in this example.

Yoda wasn’t great because he was a warrior; he reminded Luke Skywalker that “wars not make one great”. Yoda was great because he chose not to fight, not to engage, and to amass wisdom, peace, and patience. Eventually, evil was brought down by its own hubris, blindness, and corruption: from the inside. By fighting at all, Luke was being drawn towards the Dark Side. Only in throwing away (literally: his lightsaber) his fight could he start the course of action that would lead to evil’s destruction. That is what I want to be, in that example: the fighter who chooses love instead.

Maybe that sounds all too space hippy, but why not? Glamor all too often chooses the wrong target: the bold, the brash, the battler. Perhaps the ones who deserve the glory are the peacemakers, the meek, and the gentle. It takes passion to wear away the rough edges of confrontation, of power-lust, and of greatness-seeking behavior. Color me invested in rebelling against the quick, seductive lure of anger and moving towards the patient cultivation of passion. I don’t want to be the hero, the Anakin who fell to anger’s dark lure. I want to be Kenobi, be Luke, Yoda, passionate about what drives my passion and full of light. That is what I am chasing.

Look, I wasn’t wrong a few days ago, just unrefined. I want to constantly be growing, and moving in the right direction. I think I’ve found the bedrock beneath the sand I was sifting. Now I have something I can build on. True growth, I believe, is in admitting when one is wrong, and by altering course to fly in the right direction. So here’s me, in my little starfighter, headed for meditation and growth and away from battle.

The Fight in Me

I’ve got my cans on, listening to Jeremy Renner croon it up. (Wait. Hawkeye from the Avengers is a singer?)

Renner inspires me. Crushed nearly to death by a snowcat, he still survives, thrives, and lives. Lately I’ve been watching his Disney+ show Rennervations in which he takes these worn out and decommissioned vehicles and turns them into something that gives back to a community, whether it be a mobile dance studio or music studio (built out of a tour bus or city bus!). I have two episodes yet to watch in the first season and hope the show gets picked up for a second, and even if it doesn’t, I hope Renner keeps up the philanthropy anyway.

I think about Renner, and how he forced himself back from the brink of oblivion to draw breath again. If he can, so I can. I’ve been behind the eight ball, under the surface, floundering. I’ve been knocked senseless, and can’t quite feel enough rage to get back off the mat and fight back. I don’t know that I believe in fighting anymore, but those standing over me with fists raised don’t seem to care. I recall “be angry and sin not” from the OCB, and think maybe it’s time I drew up some righteous anger to fuel my fight.

There is plenty to make me angry, to enflame my passions: injustice, cruelty, and outright black evil. But I spent my childhood in a blind rage, fighting anything and everything. I engaged in one final war to end all my wars and break free from my personal hell. Ever since I’ve been trying to rest and be at peace. I haven’t found it. Rest eludes me; peace isn’t mine. Maybe that’s because there are battles yet to fight.

Jeremy Renner is acting again, and released an album about his horrific accident. I can’t muster the impetus to get off my butt and engage with my hobbies. I am mostly healthy, and though depression is a constant specter, I have few excuses. I wonder what would happen if I was in a terrible accident and was faced with the choice Renner was: give up and die or get up and live? What would I do?

I’ve wanted to keep my head down, and not engage. I am afraid. What if I start fighting again and can’t stop? I remember the black temper of my teens and early adulthood. I don’t want to go back there, but maybe there is a middle ground? I remember a moment from Avengers: Age of Ultron in which Renner’s Hawkeye is fighting the robotic army of Ultron, and takes a second to try to motivate the inexperienced Wanda Maximoff.

“Hey, look at me. It’s your fault, it’s everyone’s fault, who cares? Are you up for this? Are you? Look I just need to know because the city -it’s flying. Ok, look, the city is flying, we’re fighting an army of robots, and I have a bow and arrow. None of this makes sense. But I’m going out there because it’s my job, okay, and I can’t do my job and babysit. Doesn’t matter what you did or what you were. If you go out there you fight, and you fight… Staying here you’re good, I’ll send your brother to come find you, but if you step out that door – you are an Avenger.”
Hawkeye (Jeremy Renner)

For too long I’ve been in the shadows, kept down by trepidation, fearful of my own shadow. It’s familiar territory. I spent my childhood in a prison of anxiety, unable to walk into a Blockbuster (kids, ask your parents or grandparents) to return a video. I was angry at everything, and nothing. Afraid of everything. Then I grew up and imagined that I got help for my demons and convinced myself that I was healthy.

The truth is: I feel like Wanda Maximoff. Caught in an unstable situation I don’t understand, that is partly my fault, and unable to make sense of what I am supposed to do next. But I feel words coming to me telling me that it doesn’t matter. It doesn’t matter what the past held. What matters is what I do next. I need to muster the courage, the righteous fury, and energy to get up, step out the door keeping me held back, and become what I am meant to be.

I need to fight again!

Be Quiet

My newest muse is a woman I’ve never met. I’ll call her Heather, because that’s her name. I don’t know precisely where she lives, or at all what she looks like, but I’ve been reading her words for a while now. I don’t even remember precisely when I met her. But I am glad I did.

Heather wrote recently and what she said has arrested me so completely. Her thesis?

I wasn’t made for big things.
Heather

Heather explains that while our current western, capitalistic society is shouting that we should live loud, out-there lives on social media, and sell ourselves and everything else as side hustles, she feels drawn in the opposite direction: towards a small, quiet, un-sold life. I resonate with that so hard I feel I might vibrate apart.

Time and time again I’ve been wrongly convinced that any strengths, thoughts, or feelings of mine (any of ours) are to be packaged, marketed, and sold to the masses. That if my own ideology isn’t going to be picked up, it’s not worth putting down. That if too few people “like” what I create it’s to be immediately archived to save face. That if I have a specific skill or trait that makes me stand out among the crowd it is my unending duty to brand it, niche it, box myself into it for monetization’s sake. Otherwise, without a what’s next what’s the point of a what’s now?
Heather

I’ve battled my whole life to feel relevant. Probably leftover feelings of inadequacy in the face of being born third, or simply a constant imbibing of a message of “matter or don’t matter!” that’s been shoved down my brain ever since I could consume media. Either way, I haven’t found what “I am here to do…” and it has been quietly driving me to the mental hospital in an antiseptically white van.

I don’t want to showcase that I’ve been here. I don’t want it recorded that my mark has been made here. I simply want to show up, exist, and let any lasting effect ripple with time, completely unbeknownst to me. I want to sit with someone I just met and invite conversations that are never meant to be shared beyond the sacred moment we have them… I want to visit desolate, unhurried places and leave footsteps in the wildgrass without pictures to prove it.
Heather

I feel this in my bones. I love taking pictures, recording moments, and capturing time on a stretched canvas, but I’ve also had the thought many, many times to just enjoy a moment unrecorded. “This one is for me.” I’ll murmur, and not pull out my camera to trap it in a 4×5 frame forever. I’ll let that moment breathe, and be, and then scamper away to join its mates in the backward running stream of time to be lost forever, to be regained only in memory ever after.

I want to be the slow bob of a wave at deep sea, holding close and passing on the songs of a humpback whale and the electricity of a box jelly. I want to be infused with every touch of life, instead of grasping desperately for its hand in dance.

In my heart of hearts, I think I was meant to live quietly. Simply. Small, even, in a lot of ways. To love what I do, to love who I do, to store it in the safekeeping of memory and story…
Heather

This. So much this.

I have dreams and aspirations, of course, but they are meant to service me, and not the other way ’round. If I end up doing something noteworthy I almost want it to be by accident; I want to do it along the way of just enjoying what it is to be me, wholly me, and no-one else. Be that being a professor, or a writer, or artist, or whatever, it must be in the flow of Phil-ness and not because it is What I Was Meant To Do. I don’t know that I even believe in Destiny or Purpose or whatevers.

I believe that great ones are great because of how they treat those around them, and not for anything they Do. That every someone who ever had a statue made of them was some sort of scoundrel or other and that the truly noteworthy never really get wrote about. I am not sure I even want to be remembered for any “accomplishment” of mine, but for who I was to my wife, my nieces, my sister, my parents, and those I am privileged to know in this life.

May they remember me as I am: a flawed, simple man, trying to find my way in the universe. That will be enough for me.

Thank you, Heather.

Breaking Spring

I’ve got three jobs now. I’ve presented an academic paper at a conference. I’ve been sick and gotten well again. I’ve made several runs to airports over half an hour away. I’ve spent more money than I had to repair my car. Again. It’s been a long three weeks. Or longer? I can’t really tell, except by going back to count days on the calendar which I haven’t done.

Fortunately it is spring break at the university I work for, which means I was afforded (mostly) this week off. I’ve had a few short tasks to see to, but nothing too elaborate. Today, Thor’s Day of break, I am finally starting to feel like I can relax and enjoy myself, which is unfortunate because I feel that could have used the past four days as well.

Any more it feels like it takes longer and longer to recover when an extended break comes around. Maybe I am feeling my age, finally (I did just turn 37). I don’t think I’m that old, but again, most of my life I’ve felt years younger than my biological age.

I am grateful for the days off that I’ve had, and will have yet to come before week’s end. But that doesn’t stop me from wanting or needing more. I’ve talked about it before, but the constant run run run run of modern life just isn’t sustainable. I certainly don’t have the mental reserves to keep it up. I need rest, and more and more frequently. I really don’t know how anyone does it for long. I haven’t felt like I’ve wanted it all to stop like I used to in before times, but then again, I haven’t had this much work to do for a while either.

Deep sigh.

I haven’t touched hobbies in a long time. I look at my work space and waves of despair wash over me, threatening to drown me in their dark embrace. I long for peace, and quiet, a simple life filled with simple pursuits. Damn this modern age’s will to dominate and to usurp and to exhaust all! Someone once said that once upon a long time ago we had the option to swim naked in clear pools and lie on fresh grass to dry and breathe clean air. But we humans invented religion and industry and that all changed. Maybe we never were that idyllistic as a species. I don’t know. I just long for an Edenic existence right now.

My mood is melancholy, obviously. And that is ok. It has been a gray day today and they say thunderstorms are on the way this evening. A perfectly wretched way to end a melancholy day. I’m here for it. This isn’t one of those posts that really goes anywhere or achieves a moment of zen at the end. It is one that expresses, vaguely, what my spirit can’t quite touch, imprisoned beneath bone and flesh.

Maybe what I long for is the freedom of my soul to wander the cosmos free of bond or need of oxygen. To flit across the motes of vacuum between galaxies and to ride on the waves of radiation beaming off of stars that my mortal eyes will never see, thrusting forth light across a darkness at once deeper than any I’ve seen in my mind and at once brighter than any terrestrial black. Once I wanted the forever sleep of eternal death, to assuage a lifetime’s weariness, and while that still appeals to me greatly, sometimes I think unending life unbound would be better still. To cast off bone and skin and weariness and finally untethered be. Either way, as beautiful as Earth still can be, I don’t know that I’ve really seen it enough lately to be firmly grounded anymore.

Maybe were I back in Virginia, gazing out across the sea crashing into the shore once upon a sunset, smelling the salt in the air, listening to the wistful cries of the gulls above and feeling sand between my bare toes, I wouldn’t be so disconnected from the life pulses of my terra madre. Or walking in a pine forest and seeing trees taller than buildings on a warm summer afternoon. Or swishing my legs through deep leaves on a cool Appalachian morning in autumn. Maybe what I long for is my birth home, where my bones feel surges of life in them again. I don’t know why I am so connected to that place, having now lived away from it longer than I lived there, but I feel the call.

I must go down to the seas again, to the lonely sea and the sky,

And a grey mist on the sea’s face, and a grey dawn breaking.

And all I ask is a windy day with the white clouds flying,

And the flung spray and the blown spume, and the sea-gulls crying.
John Masefield

Whatever it is…eternal sleep, galactic freedom, or home, I think I need it soon. I feel myself cracking inside, breaking down, and starting to come apart. Stitched seams are wearing away and my life is leaking out, drop by drop. It’s pooling in the crevices and soaking through the skin, sweat to yield to gravity’s yanking force, falling to unforgiving pavement and disappearing in the abominable heat of the Texas sun.

Tears well and threaten to spill. I’ll wipe my eyes, sigh once more, and in a few minutes decide I’m fine and that I’ll be ok. I’ll lie at first, but then make it true, because it needs to be true by Monday when I return to work, and Tuesday after that, and Wednesday after that and…I can’t face any more after that’s right now. As the Good Book says “sufficient for a day is the evil thereof” and I’ve experienced enough evil to fill years and years. And today.

If I’m quiet, I can almost hear the ocean, but it is muffled, like in a shell held to my ear, and then I realize it is only the blood in my head, crashing against the shores in my skull.

Don’t worry. I’m fine.

I’m fine.

Shutdown

Last year I started a sister blog to this one where I wanted to post about “heavier” topics, or more serious themes. I found that I could not sustain the effort for a variety of reasons.

First, I find it a struggle to write more than twice a month on my blog(s) anyway, and wanted to focus my efforts meaning something got neglected.

Second, writing about things that are more serious takes more fortitude than I have the emotional reserves to handle right now. I have opinions and feelings and thoughts, but writing about them means thinking through them and handling them in my own mind before I can put them into words. Not wanting to plunge into that pool very often meant less output.

Third, because of employment rules and other reasons I am unable to be freely myself in some areas. I feel the restriction painfully, especially around certain topics about which I feel strongly. I would like nothing more than to open up about how I feel, but the fact of the matter is that I fear the repercussions to me personally and professionally if I do. I hope that doesn’t make me a coward, but I’ve got to protect certain things right now, and that comes with limitations.

Finally, I just couldn’t see anymore that having a separate blog was necessary. I already pay for and maintain this blog and domain name, and if I want to say something I can say it here. I really don’t need to double my efforts.

For all that, I have decided to, and have already, shut down the sister blog. It didn’t have a large readership, so I don’t think it will be missed, but in case anyone was following it, I wanted to say why it suddenly went away.

Thanks, as always, for reading, and I will continue to post here as often as I can.

Uncharted Waters

My friend Abby recently shared this thought on her social media:

“Some people are late bloomers because they didn’t think they were going to be here. How can someone plan for a future they never saw? Give yourself and others grace. Release the guilt of not having it all together yet. A lot of people are living life for the first time.”
-unknown

That is totally me.

I never thought I would live beyond twenty-five. I literally couldn’t imagine it in the time before.

I am going to be thirty-seven in a month and twelve days. An unfathomable age for me. I battle depression and other mental difficulties every day, even today. But back then I lived in a black world of rage, despair, suicidal thoughts, and loneliness. I wanted to die, not because I didn’t want to live, but because I didn’t want to live like that. It took a lot of work, medication, therapy, and staying alive to realize a better way and to walk a different road.

Going into February 2024 (the future: we are living in it!), I have dreams and aspirations for the first time in my life. I am thinking about my eldest niece, who is going to be seventeen soon, and my youngest niece who will be four. I want to see them both grow into the amazing women they will be, and illuminate the world with their love and grace and the sheer wonder of them. I want to see them achieve success and family and joy, whatever that looks like for them. I want to be alive for all of it.

That would mean staying alive well into as long as I can possibly live. I don’t want to die, because that will mean an end of being here for my nieces, for my sister, my wife…for myself. I realize I am living *my* life for the first and only time ever, and I want to be here for that as well. I am making plans for my future (grad school? a forever home? achievements? I don’t know!) as much as I want to make plans to see all six of my superb nieces come into their own. Plans I never made before because I didn’t see myself here at all.

I am electric with possibilities. What will the next thirty-seven years of my life look like? Where will I live, what will I do, who will I become? I don’t know, can’t know, and that is exciting to me! I do know I want to impact my family and the world I inhabit with as much love and positivity as I can muster. I have desires, of course, that I wish to fulfill. I have bookcases full of books I want to read. I have sights I want to see, and places to go, and people to re-meet. There are old friends I wish to hang out with once more, and loves to rekindle. I want to smell the salt air again of my home, and soon.

This isn’t my birthday post, this is my celebration-of-life post. In the Star Wars universe they have Life Day, a galactic holiday in which creatures great and small celebrate family and life. This is my Life Day. I am finally celebrating being alive, and reveling in that glorious purpose, whatever that actually ends up being today, tomorrow, or ten years hence.

I am releasing the guilt of not having it together for thirty-six years and forty-one days to come. (Spoiler: I won’t have it together on my birthday either.) I am living my life for the first time. I want to continue living my life all the way until my days are spent. I actually feel like, perhaps the first time, that this is even possible. It is strange and mysterious and incredible. I feel I could jump up and punch the moon for the fantastic joy of life and exuberance itself!

Oh, perhaps that is enough hyperbole, but I don’t care. No more holding back for me. Life is meant to be lived boundless and free. If that means a few slight exaggerations? So be it!

The Success of Failure

I am a fan of Adam Savage. Folks my age will know him as the erstwhile Mythbuster, a man who egregiously blew sh*t up and rigorously tested urban legends, myths, historical fables, and internet viral videos (among other things) on the Discovery Channel. Today he runs a YouTube channel called Tested. Adam is a strong proponent of the Maker Movement. What is making? In his words: “making is any time you reach out with your point of view and make something from nothing” and it could be computer code, a blog post, a deck chair, an omelet, a crochet cactus – anything!

Another Adam-ism is that “failure is always an option!” One must fail many times on journey of success. Note: I didn’t say road, because making is rarely that straightforward, that well-trodden, that…obvious. Making is more of a journey, in that the trip is more important (sometimes) than the destination, or the end result. I have come to believe that what I learn while making is more valuable to me than the object I end up with as a result of my making.

My most recent foray into making was in customizing a Star Wars action figure. This action figure is a stock re-creation of a character from one of Lucasfilm’s TV shows. I wanted to make it a similar character, but not the one everyone knows. I began with a simple paint job. A little acrylic paint here and there to change the tone and color of the figure. I then added some Rub’N’Buff, a wax product that lends a metallic sheen to things. Finally I wanted to “weather” the figure, that is, add a patina of dirt and grime to make the figure seem like it came from a lived-in universe and not fresh from a factory somewhere. And there is where I failed.

I failed by not sealing my paint job. I should have, but I don’t quite know how as that isn’t knowledge I have yet added to my mental memory banks. Usually, it isn’t a problem (I hadn’t learned how much of a problem it could be until this episode!). This Failure led to a succession of failures. First, the medium I use for weathering is a pigmented water-based wash meant for miniature figures, such as for gaming or other uses. It is a little sticky, though, and there-in lay the trouble. With an unprotected paint job, the wash first stuck to my plastic gloves, and then to the paint. I started, as I merely handled the figure in between wash coats, to pull off bits of the paint I had so carefully laid down in the first place. Then, this pulled up paint, now stuck to my gloves and re-wetted ever so slightly, started to be re-applied to places it shouldn’t have been whenever I touched the figure. I figured this out too late.

After that, I tried to cover my mistakes with more Rub’N’Buff, but that led to patches of metallic silver or black which didn’t approximate the look I was going for: subtle glints of metallic color. Finally, the wash didn’t really show up anyway as much as I wanted it to due to the darker color of the figure, so it ended up not adding much variation. The end result is a patchy, muddy, overly-dark re-colored figure. I failed to achieve my goal!

Overall, this is one more step in the journey towards a great looking custom Star Wars action figure. I may have failed this iteration, but I have gained a lot by the exercise. First, I need to find a way to seal my figures once painted. Second, I need to adjust my levels of Rub’N’Buff. A little really does go a long way. Third, I may need a new weathering media, or maybe if sealed, the washes I have will work fine. I don’t know yet. I need to take a few more steps, and learn thereby.

Adam, I believe, would applaud my efforts. He is fond of saying that workshops should adhere all the iterative failures to the wall, not to shame, but to show the long, slow progression of progress from beginning to intermediate to master of the craft; to show that each failure is a step in the right direction; to spur on the maker towards more making. I don’t quite have the wall or shelf space, but I’ve rarely thrown a mistake away. I have a bin of almost-there figures that I take out once in a while and marvel at how far I’ve come. Maybe someday I will take what I have learned and improve on them and make them something more than they are, or maybe I will display them someday when I do have room and see where I’ve come from.

Tested has a merch store. Part of their offerings for sale that they created and made available some time ago are “de-merit” badges. These are patterned off the scout badges one can earn as a girl or boy scout, but instead of showing things achieved as a merit badge, these celebrate the wrong turns, the failures, the mistakes made along the way. There is one for touching wet paint, for letting out the mysterious blue smoke that powers electronics, for plugging too many things into one outlet, for measuring once resulting in cutting twice, and many more. For one thing, failures along the journey are as plentiful as they are varied, but for another, they are mile-markers, sign posts to show just how far a maker has come.

Adam and Tested occasionally give gifts to their YouTube Patrons, a little “thank you for the support” and in December they sent out three random de-merit badges. I received mine. I hadn’t yet made a purchase of them for myself, and was curious to see how I felt by having some in my possession. I surprised myself by delighting in them! These three were de-merit badges I had already earned: Cut Oneself, Accidentally Glued Fingers Together, and Lost Screw. I knew immediately that I had to add a few more badges I had also earned. (I ordered six more, and they should be arriving soon. I have been hard at work failing!) Now I need a way to proudly display them. Still working on that.

I am ever so thankful to Adam Savage for his guidance. I tend towards perfectionism, and push myself hard to get it right on the first go around. That is almost never possible! So with a little patience and self-love and grace, I can learn to succeed at failing and eventually reach a destination of making what I set out to make, though I don’t think I will ever stop losing screws, or accidentally gluing my fingers together, or other epic fails along the way!

Do Something New?

In my mind, one year is pretty much an extension of the next, and only an accident of human calendar keeping lets us know when one has changed into the next. Otherwise, we would probably delineate things according to seasons or like some cultures, measure time by the moon. In any case, 2024 so far doesn’t feel much different than 2023, at least, not yet. It is still winter, and as such is in the middle of a season. I think a full moon was a little bit ago, but I tend not to notice such things except for “Hey! A full moon. Would ya look at that?”

I’ve been working on a theory about New Year’s weight loss resolutions and why they never seem to make it out of February. My hypothesis? Most people aren’t terribly out of shape. They eat more from Thanksgiving through New Years and feel bad about it because our image-obsessed culture tells them they should. So they work out, get back to where they were at the beginning of November, and move on with their regularly scheduled lives. I dunno, I could be wrong about that, but if someone needs to actually make a life style change (which is what weight loss should be anyway) that tends to happen when needed and not usually at January-the-First-of-Whatever-Year.

This leads me to gate-keeping. Gate-keeping is that insidious and evil process by which self-appointed wardens keep watch at the gates of anything and tell newcomers they aren’t welcome to enter for Enter-Reason-Here. Take Star Wars for example. It used to be that we had three Star Wars movies and they were great and everyone pretty much agreed about that because, well, there were only three. Except Return of the Jedi, aka, the One with the Space Bears, which wasn’t as good as the other two. And thus Star Wars gatekeeping was born. If you didn’t agree, you weren’t a TRUE Star Wars fan. Well, fuck that. I love Star Wars, including the One with the Space Bears. In fact, if you love any Star Wars you are ok in my book, even if it is Rise of Skywalker or Book of Boba Fett or whatever the modern (when you are reading this anyway: when I was younger, it was less Jedi and more Phantom Menace) equivalent is.

What do gate-keeping and New Year’s resolutions have to do with each other? I think many people in Western or American culture gate-keep when it comes to making or keeping New Year’s resolutions, which is why there is such a premium on the resolutions in the first place. People don’t feel that they belong, or are allowed to exist, as they are, so they acquiesce when others force them out of certain categories and don’t even try to enter. Then, only when a New Year comes along, do the gate-keepers open their doors a crack to allow anyone else in, because, after all, they resolved to enter this community, so they will actually stick with it this time and therefore are allowed. Like I said: fuck that. One: it isn’t anyone else’s business what you do or when, so start doing something cool because you want to regardless of what anyone else thinks (or what the calendar says). Two: this business of resolving is for the birds. Either you do something or you don’t, and whether you do it habitually is a much more complex thing than ordinary folks imagine, psychologically and physiologically speaking, anyway. My rambling point is: you are allowed at any moment to do anything you wish (within reason and decency), and you don’t need to resolve to do it habitually, either.

Don’t gate-keep yourself, either. Don’t exclude yourself from things you want to try or to do because of anything internal. I’ll never keep up with it is a horrible reason to self gate-keep. You either do something or you don’t. Some have trouble with personal hygiene routines, either due to depression or some other reason. But the secret to success at teeth brushing or writing the next great American novel is to simply do it when you think about it. If it is something you want to do, I guarantee it will be in your thoughts, so you’ll get a chance to do it again when you think of it again. Brushing teeth is a thing best done fairly often, but not exhaustively, and so is writing. Along the way, your mouth will thank you and you just might turn up at your desk to find a novel where before there was only a handful of papers with furious scribbling on them. Or you might find that you need to buy new running shoes because you’ve worn out a pair, or need to buy new barbells because the ones you’ve been lifting seem too light. Whatever your thing is, you might just find it becomes enough of an obsession that the resolution has taken care of itself naturally. And by not standing in your own way or waiting for Jan 1 on some calendar, you’ve made a lifestyle change all by yourself with no one else’s permission.

Which, by and by, is why you shouldn’t listen to gate-keepers ever about anything. It is never too late, or too early (usually) to start a new obsession. Overwhelmed with Star Wars, but heard enough about it that you want to jump in to the galaxy? Pick a show or film and start watching. From there, everything else is sequel or prequel to what you started with, so discover it organically. Don’t like a particular show or character or storyline? Don’t sweat it, there is plenty to like out there. Don’t like Star Wars at all? Try some other Star: Gate, Trek, Dancing with the, whatever. Find your thing and go for it! And never let someone tell you that because you don’t know all the minutia about The Thing you are getting in to, you don’t belong there. Everyone starts as a total newcomer, and learns along the way. No one is born knowing all the Trivial Pursuit answers about X Y and Z.

That might just be the longest pre-amble to saying that I am not resolved to do anything in 2024 that I was not already doing in 2023. Unless I learn a thing or start to become obsessed with something new while the calendar happens to say 2024, in which case, I will start doing it or enjoying it regardless of the season or phase of the moon. Truth is, I have enough hobbies and jobs and obsessions right now as it is, I can’t keep up anyway. I’ll continue brushing my teeth, writing, watching Star Wars, and living however I want because I don’t brook with gate-keepers, and I am trying ever so hard to not gate-keep myself.

To whit: I had a few goals for the holiday break (which is sadly almost over) and I accomplished a few of them, didn’t accomplish others, and only halfway made it on the rest. Yay! Go me! That is called living. We will all die with to-do lists, unread books, unwashed clothes, and with life unfinished. As we didn’t control or get to choose our beginning, we will not choose our ending. So make a list, and get to it, or keep doing it and enjoy the ride. I will keep reading the Lord of the Rings (halfway through Two Towers), I got my hobby room reorganized, and straight didn’t work on any action figures or dioramas. Shrug. Time enough in 2024 for all those things and more! I can’t wait to do all the stuff I want to do.

Happy New Year to you, whatever you choose to do!

Best Of: 2023

As has become a tradition of mine here on the ol’ blog, it is time for my best of from the past year. The idea isn’t mine, I got it from Tested.com, the haunt of Mythbuster-turned-maker-extraordinaire Adam Savage. Each year he and the other contributors to Tested put up videos of their favorite things from the year. So here goes my “best of” for another year!

MacBook Air

I replaced my dearly departed Mac Mini with a MacBook Air in Starlight this year. Not only is it a gorgeous laptop, it has been plenty powerful for all my computer and school needs (I went back to school for the first time in thirteen years!). It has tripled as a personal computer, work computer, and school computer, and has handled all three jobs fantastically. By now it is no shock to anyone that I prefer Apple products, having featured at least one most years. I like my Air and it, along with all the software updates that Apple provides, are my jam.

LEGO Minifigure

Sometime this year, I don’t remember when, I bought a LEGO minifigure. Well, that is misleading. I bought a macrofigure. It is a large set that replicates the ubiquitous LEGO figure into an upscaled minifigure. It was a ton of fun to build, and even features a proper minifigure under the hat in a control center “driving” the larger figure beneath. I have it sitting on a surface where I see it every day, and it makes me smile every day.

Books

I have been reading this year! If you’ve been following along with the ups and downs of my mental health, you will know that reading is something that has not come easily for years. This year I have read several books, among them Stephen King’s On Writing and Tolkien’s the Hobbit and I am working my way through the Lord of the Rings again, currently in the middle of the Two Towers. I couldn’t be happier! I downloaded an app for my phone, Reading List ( <— link to the iOS app), which allows me to enter books by scanning their barcodes (older books can be added via ISBN or manually) and then I can carry about listing of my entire library with me, or track my progress reading through a book. I can even look back at all the books I have read this year, and add books to a “To-Read” list. It has really come in useful when I go to Half Price Books and can’t remember off-hand if I already own a book or not. I look it up, and that keeps me from duplicate purchases. In all, a very useful app that pairs with all the books I am reading, have, and will read.

Speaking of which, I have added several Tolkien books to my library, too many to list out here, but which tell the broader story of Tolkien’s writing and scholarship. One in particular, The Proverbs of Middle Earth by David Rowe, sparked a semester long study of the folklore of Tolkien’s fairy tales for one of my classes! I got to study and read Tolkien at the same time, which was a dream come true. I had much fun and even impressed my professor with some of the analysis I was able to do.

Infrastructure

I’ve added some furniture and other things to the Art Studio my wife and I have upstairs in our house, across from our bedroom. Among them a computer desk, an art table or two, and various storage solutions. Trying to fit two people and their art infrastructure into one largish room is always a work in progress, and over the holiday break I hope to optimize the space even further. It would help a lot to not have carpet, and to have more room, but there is only so much you can do when you are making art in a space in your house and not in a dedicated studio or other building.

Still, the changes we have and will make are making it easier for us both to do what we love to do: make stuff. She crochets, works with clay, and other fiber and physical arts; and I customize my action figures, create dioramas, sometimes build LEGO, and paint or other crafting. We even moved the TV upstairs from the living room so we can watch shows or movies while we work or relax. The next step is to somehow fit a couch for group viewing, but it remains to be seen if that will even be possible. It’s a goal, anyway!

Soylent

I have been working to maintain good health ever since contracting Covid-19 a few years ago, and part of that has been trying to eat healthier. For awhile I was drinking Glucerna shakes, a blood sugar friendly protein drink, for breakfast. Recently my wife decided to try Soylent for her breakfast, a similar product to Glucerna, but one that doesn’t have milk protein. She and I are both lactose intolerant, and while Glucerna is better for blood sugar, it has milk in it, and was causing unpleasantness for me. When my supply of Glucerna was used up, I switched to Soylent, and it is even more filling and less with the side effects!

In fact, it has been so good that I have replaced both breakfast and dinner with a Soylent shake. I have noticed in just the short time that I have made the switch that I am less sleepy, have more energy, my blood sugar is lower, and am not as hungry. Plus, I don’t have to decide what to eat twice a day! I eat lunch at the cafeteria at the university where I work, so that lets me exercise my jaw. It remains to be seen if the long-term results are as good as what I am experiencing here in the short going, but for now I am happy. A subscription on Amazon keeps me supplied and saving a bit of money on the Soylent, so that isn’t bad either.

I think that about wraps up my favorite things from 2023. It has been a great year, all things considered. I achieved my goal of returning to work after being laid off in February; I achieved my goal of returning to school after a long hiatus; I am healthier; I feel mentally strong in a way I haven’t in a long time; and while things are not perfect, I have a supportive wife, a couple of good dogs, my family, and I’m alive. After 2020, that is all I really need.

Dandelions in December

As I let the dogs outside this evening, I was not entirely surprised to see dandelion blooms standing tall in the shaggy grass, gently bending in a balmy breeze. North Texas is a fairly temperate climate, and as my mother remarked earlier today: fall comes in December, which makes the winter holidays a little confusing, that is, if you are expecting a New England autumn in September and snow for Christmas.

Lately it’s been cool and breezy in the morning, and warm and sunny in the afternoon. Not too bad, after all. With temperatures cooler than triple digits, I note that Thanksgiving Day has past, and Christmas is only about three weeks away. Soon it will be time for holiday break, and with it the promise of time off of both work and school.

I will have finished the classes I am taking this semester in about two weeks. In the time that follows, I want to accomplish a few things, and I thought I would be good to put that into writing to try to make it more “official” in order to motivate myself.

To begin with, I have a few books sitting on my bookshelf. Well, let’s be honest for a moment: I have a lot of books on my bookshelf, and even added a few news one with a morning trip to my local Half Price Books. But I have several in particular that I want to thumb through and read.

I have been collecting “Art of” books for a while, and have a decent gathering. First unread among them is the Art of the Lord of the Rings which is actually the art of J.R.R. Tolkien as he originally illustrated his saga. In particular, I want to dive into that tome, but there are two Art of Star Wars books that I also want to investigate.

Another book that has caught my eye is a book on poetry, which will come as no shock to regular readers. This book showcases major poetical authors, and eras, in an exploration of forms. That particular book looks very interesting as a way to inspire more poems to write. I haven’t written but a handful of poems since I self-published my book, Whiskey Poetry. Might be time to get back into that head space for a while.

In addition to those four books, I am continuing to read the Lord of the Rings. I am getting closer to finishing the Fellowship of the Ring (currently the Fellowship is stuck in Moria), and will continue with the Two Towers and Return of the King after that. I would like to finish the saga before the new year. Maybe that is an unreachable goal, but I’ll see what I can do.

Beyond reading, I have a few action figures that I would love to customize, paint, or weather to make them look like they’ve lived in their worlds instead of being fresh from the factory. Action figure art and photography isn’t something I have done that much of recently, and I would very much like to get back into it. I have a list of figures to customize listed on a small white board in my studio. Along with customizing, I might try my hand at building more scenery in six inch scale, as I’ve only done a little bit of that, and would like to try walls or buildings. I did a few landscapes a while back, and while they aren’t bad, they aren’t spectacular either. So I may fiddle with scenery a bit, too.

Third on my list is infrastructure. I am always looking for ways to maximize work area and utilize space as efficiently as possible. There is some stuff in the studio that isn’t being used, and maybe could be put into longer term storage. Also, I might come up with a way to find more workspace, or more useful everyday storage. As with most things, this is a work in progress, but I find re-arranging and organizing invigorating. Plus, the more I can make use of limited space in better ways, the more I will be able to do in photography and other art. It also might make it easier to find time to create and get over the negative momentum I so easily feel with a lowered barrier to entry into the creative headspace.

Fourth, and this is pie in the sky a bit, my wife and I have two IKEA chairs that we use to hang out in the studio when we watch tv or read or work on art that doesn’t require a table-top surface. This is adequate when it is just the two of us, but if we ever wanted to watch TV with anyone else, there simply isn’t any other seating, other than desk chairs which work for work, but not for relaxing. This is a long way to saying I would love to be able to find a way to get a couch or something up in the studio. As I have mentioned, space is at a premium, so it simply may not be possible. I want to explore the possibility anyway.

Lastly, and this may seem contradictory, but I’d like to take time to just be at peace. This may include holiday events with my family, or just hanging out, but because I know I need rest, it will be vital to take time to be quiet. I don’t know if there is a way to accomplish all these goals or not, but this is what I have in mind for the month of December, and holiday break in particular.

I look forward to checking back in January sometime, and seeing how future me will do with present me’s goals. For now, I want to get through the next two weeks of work, the last two class periods for each class, and not rush through the holiday break. As much as possible it would be great to be able to relax and savor each moment as it arrives.