Index Card Organization

I am starting to embrace the fact that the way I live and the things that hold my attention are not consistently in my attention. Which means the things I might be into today might lose my interest tomorrow but peek out from uder the curtain and hold my interest again a few years from now.

I embraced my shifting focus well in the last ten years. What I am yet to learn is to effectively leave myself breadcrumbs to find an older focus back when I feel ready.

I have been re-reading Pirsig's Lila. In this book Pirsig talks about a way he left himself notes in case he were to have another mental breakdown and lost all the memories. He uses an elaborate and uber-analytical method of cataloging ideas. Pirsig would write his ideas on index cards and catalog them in a particular topic. Then he used a simple rule to set the cards in order. Imagine a sort of dewey decimal system for ideas.

This system can expand infinitely but still work for just a handful of ideas.

My ideas are less than a handful, and fairly pedestrian. They are in no way as brilliant and deep as Pirsig's. Pirsig pursued value and morals. My pursuits do not compare. But my pursuits are important to me. Capturing them is important given my ever changing focus.

I will write more about the system Pirsig uses and my interpretaton of it. I will be starting with a simplistic execution of the system before complications are necessary.

For now, I am going to purchase some index cards.

Why art

When Neo woke up in a crucible of viscous fluid with pipes sticking out of him, we the audiece gasped at the idea that human bodies were merely rechargeable batteries for a machine. That thought was repulsive. We knew that we are more than elaborate batteries.

It is this "more than" feeling that shines a light on why we are here and what we are supposed to do. You will have your own interpretation of it and so will I.

Being around a culture of "more than" takes us on a path to fulfillment and happiness. The more paved the path, the more fulfillment and happiness to be had.

The culture where the artist-spectator relationship is ongoing, disruptive at times, volatile maybe, and generally vibrant is a culture for me. Experimentation becomes welcome. Skill is holy. Things seem possible. Mistakes are stepping stones.

This culture is a magical place where even the most mundane cubicle warrior such as me could get inspired enough to start and continue exploring arts making mistakes along the way.

Anything else would have felt like laying in a crucible of viscous fluid with pipes sticking out of my body feeding renewable energy to an unknown machine.

Artists and Spectators

There is a difference between artists and spectators.

Spectators have decided art is not their job. In some way they have removed themselves from the arena. The bleachers are more comfortable. They are good at supporting the artists. Spectators have decided that their job is to watch.

Artists are in the arena but they are not performing. They are struggling. The mess of thoughts and ideas in their heads need to be put into a medium. They are struggling to put the idea down in a way that makes sense to them. When the idea is complete, it makes the spectators happy.

Artists have not arrived. They are making mistakes. They are trying. Completion is the goal. Accolades may come later.

Spectators have arrived. At the bleachers. They are connecting to the art. Emotionally. They can feel the art as a complete idea but they cannot point you to the last brush stroke.

Artists need spectators and spectators need artists.

A good artist is an even better spectator.

My Morning Routine in Detail

I really like my morning routine so far.

Going to bed is a part of the routine. I switch off all electronic devices at 9:30 except the computer where I write the blog post, and the iPad where I make the illustration. What you read in the morning is what I wrote the night before. Then I read in bed before going to sleep by 11 PM.

I naturally wake up at around 6 AM these days. If I don't, my wife's alarm wakes me up at 6:30.

First I pee, then wash my face with cold water. It really wakes me up.

Then I drink a full glass of freshly drawn water. I have spent a few mornings ignoring this step and my body can immediatelly tell the difference.

By this time Olive is awake and alert. She is watching my every move. She knows we walk in the morning and she will make sure it happens every day. I generally avoid eye contact with Olive while I put away dishes from the dishwasher or any other chores left over from the night before. I took the recycle bin to the street this morning, and the trash to the trash bin.

Then Olive and I walk. She is usually quite spirited in the beginning. We go around the block and we enjoy the slow Florida morning watching the humidity and heat rise with the morning light. Olive starts grazing towards the end of our walk. It is a challenge getting her back home.

I make an omlette with two eggs. Just a simple dish, no adders. I eat it quickly with some spicy ketchup.

Then I make our bed. This is my new obsession. I like to pay attention getting the blankets tucked in just right. I am going for tight hospital corners and a taut bed surface. This bed stays pretty set even after pets sleeping on it all day and us lounging on it in the evenings.

Then I clean the cat litter before jumping into the shower.

By the time I leave for work, I have accomplished many tasks fully. It feels like I had a full and productive morning and the tone of my day is set. The morning routine takes about ninety minutes from start to finish. I feel very grateful for being able to do it all.

I used to roll out of bed and into the shower. I would still be waking up when I got to the office. I needed the coffee.

None of that any more.

Training Wheels

The ability to focus is like a muscle.
It atrophies when not used.
It needs to be exercised regularly to build.
And it gets better with more exercise.

I used to be good at reading when I was younger. Reading long form articles and books happened with ease, even with non-fiction like textbooks.

My ability waned when I started working. With working came reading short form emails, and no books. I remember when I wanted to read Pirsig's Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance. It was 2008 and I was in my own apartment. I had full control on distractions.

I remember it being so difficult to focus that my mind would wander at half a page of the paperback. I wold drift away on several tangents often. The dry metaphysical topic did not help either.

Switching on music started to help. I would play some electronic music that prevented my mind from going on as many tangents while reading. It took a few months for my focus to start getting better. The music started to feel like a distraction. Just like training wheels become a bother when we learn to balance a bicycle.

That thing you used to be able to do but can't do any more?
Well, find your training wheels.
Give it a go.

Scheduling for nothing

I have a love-hate relationship with creating plans.

The analytical engineer in me is programmed to write a list of tasks and check off that list.

A list of tasks solidifies our focus towards those tasks leaving no room for epiphanies.

Epiphanies or creative sparks come with no schedule or warning. They can not be planned into a task.

1. Open workshop
2. Buy wood
3. Sharpen tools
4. Summon creative spark
5. Start building said creative furniture

This does not happen.

For the creative spark to happen you plan for empty spaces with no agenda. Or rather, seek out times of your day to mindfully remove all other stimuli. Schedule nothing into your day.
Take a walk without counting steps.
Ride your bicycle around aimlessly.
Switch off the radio on your drive to work and back.
Stare at the window with the TV switched off.
Take a break from the non-stop music being piped through the headphones/speakers.
Stare at a blank screen no matter how silly it looks.

Let your mind wander.

Leaning into it

It was only yesterday that I finally finished processing all my paper mail. And when I was done, it felt easy. It felt like the massive wall that seemed too impossible to scale was a flimsy little piece of corrugate that was easily knocked over.

I have faced and tackled a few such walls in the last few years. They all had the same story... too difficult even impossible at first, then they just knocked over as soon as I mustered up the strength to lean into it.

The impossible wall was not the wall. It was me.

I have another wall in front of me now. It seems to have been impossible to get back into woodworking since I took a break before my wedding. I just can't seem to start again.

I need to give this wall a shove. Or rather, I need to find the strength to lean into it. That's all. My previous goals were to spend two hours in the wood shop, or to finish that mortise, or some other difficult task.

New goal: make one chop into the unfinished mortise. Just one. Place chisel on the knife mark, raise mallet and strike. That's it.

That should be all I need to lean into the wall.

I hope.

Cutting The Cord 2.0

YouTube had to go.
The app had to get deleted from my iPad.

It was too easy to carry a video with me around the house, on the breakfast table, in the bed, on the couch...

It was too lucrative to simply hit play and watch hours and hours of videos in a good resolution screen that fits nearly anywhere around me. I took pride in my eclectic interests: cars, off road trucks, cooking, organization, woodworking, film talk, trailers... the list is endless.

I used to take pride in not having cable, for having cut the cord.
I had just replaced one coaxial cord for a wireless one.

So I reduced my ability to access youtube. I will watch videos but on my desktop computer which is not easily portable to the couch, bed or breakfast table.

Youtube is comfortable. I don't have to think. I can just scroll around, tap the glass screen and watch for hours.

Time for less watching and more doing.

Time to cut the cord again.

The Cure for Monotony

The cure for monotony is not shopping.
It isn't inhaling Netflix.
It isn't Pokemon Go either.

Monotony is lack of care. So the cure for monotony is care.

Few things are as monotonous as doing laundry.
Lots of wait time between loads and cycles.
Lots of dirty clothes to separate and move.
Lots of clean clothes to hang and fold.
Fitted sheets!
I hated doing it all and often found myself fishing for clean but crumbled clothes straight from the drier before going to work.

Deciding to care for well folded clothes changed the way I did laundry. It went from a boring chore to a less boring routine. Now my clothes looks like this.

Learning, like really learning how to fold fitted sheets helps too. I googled it for you. Try it. If it does not work, come see me and I will teach you. Free of charge. A little vietnamese lady taught me at the laundromat I used to visit.

The value of my clothes have not changed by me folding them a certain way.
Neither has their longevity.
I am stil spending the same amount of time folding clothes as I did before. Just not from a week old crumpled pile anymore.

No one likes to do laundry.
No one enjoys doing dishes.
No one likes to make their bed in the morning.
But doing these things makes our lives a little better in some way.

Better is better than okay.
And the way to get to better is by caring.