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Kwanzaa 2020: Kujichagulia

27 Dec

Habari gani, fam?

Today we focus on the principle of kujichagulia, or self-determination. Any people that have struggled to throw off the legacy of slavery and institutional racism fundamentally struggle for the right to determine who they are themselves, instead of accepting the role the dominant culture pushes on them. As Black Americans, we deal with these false narratives all the time because we live in a country that has not been able to properly reckon with its own racism. We’re not human beings to many people; we’re an inscrutable other prone to behaviors that are impossible to understand. We’re not fathers, mothers, sons, or daughters. We’re felons, welfare recipients, gang members, hoodrats. Our individuality is stripped from us every time one of us is pulled over because we “fit the description”, every time someone mispronounces our names, every time our accomplishments are overshadowed by our political reality.

I am an invisible man. No, I am not a spook like those who haunted Edgar Allan Poe; nor am I one of your Hollywood-movie ectoplasms. I am a man of substance, of flesh and bone, fiber and liquids – and I might even be said to possess a mind. I am invisible, understand, simply because people refuse to see me.

Ralph Ellison, Invisible Man

The basic power to define ourselves is under assault every day for black Americans. The dominant culture wants to put us in a box that absolves them of facing history one way or another. Our own culture demands us to be the perfect defiance of that narrative, tells us that there’s only one way to forge our own path. Within these twin pressures bearing down on us, it’s vital to remember that we get to say who we are — no one else. The power of self-determination can only be used, though, if we bear the responsibility of behaving in accordance with what we’ve named ourselves. These labels often only have the power of the will behind it. 

There’s a diagnostic for this concept that I actually really like. In order to truly wield the power of self-determination, we must ask ourselves three questions.

Who am I?

We’re starting off with the most basic and difficult questions, right? In order to answer it honestly, we have to spend some time getting to know ourselves: not just the people we want to be, but the people we are right now, flaws and all. We have to have a sense of perspective about ourselves that might be humbling. We’re all the heroes of our own stories, of course, but no hero can be blind to the reality of their situation. 

This year I turned 40 years old. I am not who I thought I would be at this age; nowhere near as successful or driven, nowhere near as much wealth as I thought I’d have. I don’t have the experience or talent I wanted to have cultivated by now. I’m a lot more naive than I thought I’d be, a lot less perceptive, a man frozen by fear far more often than I’d like.

I also know that I am incredibly resilient, and I am persistent towards the goals that really matter to me; it might take me a while, but if I want to do something I’ll eventually figure out a way to get there. I’m kind, and earnest, and care a great deal about doing the right thing well. I’m smart — in my way — and I have a natural aptitude for numbers, details that are easy to overlook, and maybe even social dynamics. I’m devoted to my loves, my friends, my chosen family. 

It’s taken me a long time, but I’ve learned to be comfortable within my own skin, with its limitations and destructive loops and vast, unrealized potential. I know that the worst vices within myself are harder to fight because of where and when I was born, and what my culture has decided me to be. I have decided to accept this burden with as much equanimity as I can muster, hoping that the way I live my life can be a refutation of this grave social injustice. I am as decent a human being as I can be, and I am always striving to be more decent than that. I have chosen to tell you who I am by what I say, what I write, what I do.

Am I really who I say I am?

This is the reality check. How do we know we are who we say we are? It’s recommended that we have and employ a cultural criteria of authenticity, i.e., criteria of what is real and unreal, what is appearance and essence, what is culturally-rooted and foreign.

But what the hell does that mean?

It means that we must have a way other people can decide whether or not we’re being true to ourselves. Others, trusted within our communities, tell us if we’re actually resilient or if we’re just presenting the illusion of resilience. If we determine who we are as a culture, we have to agree what’s a part of it and what’s not; what others can participate in and what they can’t; how to tell someone “of the culture” and someone who’s not. 

Self-determination, by nature, is an act of artifice. We decide how we want to present ourselves to the outside world, but we also have to back it up with action. We construct ourselves through our words, then by the deeds we perform to back up those words. The way we define ourselves is not how we find out who we really are; it’s merely using a common language to form an image others can relate to. This language is built on what we value and how we reflect those values. If there’s a gap between what we value in ourselves (decency) and how we define decency by our actions (being an all-purpose jerk), we mislead others and make it harder to truly know ourselves. 

I love this check because it marries the theoretical (what we say) to the tangible (what we do). Once I’ve defined myself, it makes my choices a lot easier. If I’m, say, roasting someone online, and I think “Is this who I really am?” — I’m likely going to answer “No.” I am not the kind of dude that just roasts people online. If it’s fine for you, great, I’m sure you have your reasons. But that’s not me. 

Am I all that I ought to be?

Now that you’ve taken care of who you are really, you have to take stock of who you want to be. If you’re exactly the person you want to be, keep on rocking! But what’s the next step in living your virtues? How can you make that happen? What would your life look like if you took the things you cared about to the next level?

This is an excellent time of the year to check in on that. If I’m not really who I say I am, I have to reckon with that and change what I’m doing. If I’m not all that I feel I ought to be, I have to take stock of why not and how that can be changed. 

These three questions also force you to think about what’s within your control and what isn’t. Ultimately you can’t control how other people see you, or whether they accept you or not. But if they don’t see you the same way you see yourself, it helps to think about why that’s so. Are you invisible? Or do the effect of your deeds differ from your intentions? 

It also provides you with a way to think about your ideal self with a built-in reality check. You look at where you are and where you want to be, and you think about how to bridge that gap. It may take time — years, decades — but just the progress is enough to make you feel better about yourself. When that happens, it’s easier to shrug off the pressure of being told who you are. Because you know. You’ve thought through it, and you’ve aligned your will and effort into being your best self. No one has your experience being you, except you. And if you’re honest with yourself, you know what’s true and what’s not. 

At least, I hope so! Living with mental illness means living with the fact that my perspective may be distorted heavily, so I need to lean on the people I trust more than most to tell me when I’m not being who I want to be. For some reason, you may be in the same situation. But, at least for me, the more I check in with myself, the more I practice radical self-honesty and self-acceptance, the easier it is for me to just ken when I’m on my track and when I’m not. 

That being said, I know I’m not all that I ought to be. But I’m happy with who I am, even as I take steps to be better. Being able to define myself, and hold myself to that standard, is a big reason why.

 
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Posted by on December 27, 2020 in Buddhism, mental-health, Self-Reflection

 

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A Mindful New Year

01 Jan

Buddhism 150Hey, it’s (sort of) the first day of the new decade! Er, depending on who you ask. Judging from the many, MANY “Best of 2010s” articles I’ve read over the past few months, the consensus seems to be that decades begin at Year 0. Since the significance of these markers is completely artificial, that’s a good a sign as any to declare this the official start of the 20s. Between you and me, I’m glad that we’re looking back at the 2010s instead of living them.

It’s been an exhausting few years. There is no shortage of things to fight about, from systemic racism to climate change to our favorite pop-culture obsessions, life online has become a battleground instead of a refuge. Even those of us who use the Internet as an escape of sorts have found ourselves entrenched in the wars of the day. Furries have had to reckon with the rise of the alt-right in our ranks, addressing the constant and unapologetic toxic behavior of a few popular artists, and dealing with the increased visibility of the real-life marginalizations our fellows have to endure. It hasn’t been easy, and we’re still figuring out how to deal with very real issues as a community. So far, though, the work has been promising.

There’s still so much to do, though. In the United States this is a Presidential election year, so the tone of political discourse will grow louder over the coming months until it’s a constant bullhorn in our ears. Whether we believe in it or not, climate change is still pushing our weather into unpredictable and dangerous territory. Vast wealth inequality will likely increase, meaning that a very few people will have outsized influence on our government, businesses, culture, and even our diet. Our problems are so huge and so varied it often feels impossible to know just what we can do about it. The options that seem to be available to us are “go crazy” or “ignore it” as much as possible.

I’ve gone mostly quiet because I don’t know if my voice actually contributes to the solution. This isn’t a bid for compliments or reassurance; I’m not entirely sure anyone can contribute to the solution with the way things are right now. Everyone is shouting for their voices to be heard, but so few of us are actually listening. You can’t have a discussion without that; otherwise, we’re screaming into a raucous and deafening void.

I spent some time with my husband’s family over Christmas, and it was both wonderful and draining. My in-laws are a big clan, with a lot of different personalities carrying personal (and generational) baggage into any conversation. One brother is a Trump voter, but also someone struggling with anxiety and self-image issues. Another has recently defected from the Republican Party after the rise of 45 and his brand of politics. A sister is fairly liberal, but wrestling with the loss of her Christian faith. Even though they’re quite different and building families of their own, their love for each other keeps them in each other’s orbit through the inherent tension of clashing perspectives. It was a reminder of how important it is to accept people as they are, even as you push them to do better.

That’s not a popular message right now. There’s so much anger over where we are as a nation (even as a species), so much frustration that we haven’t solved so many long-standing problems, and it feels like our biggest priority is figuring out who to blame. While I certainly agree with my fellow progressives about where the fault lies, I’m no longer sure it’s productive to keep beating the drum of demanding consequences. I think the best thing we can do is accept the situation we’re in and figure out how to do the best we can from here.

This doesn’t mean that people should not be held responsible for the awful things they’ve done. We should prosecute the people responsible for putting children in cages and breaking up families at the border; they should be held accountable for the deaths suffered under their watch. The current President and his administration should absolutely be put on trial for their corruption and abuse of power. We should continue to call out bigoted speech and behavior in our spaces, and make it clear that won’t be tolerated. We need to continue fighting against the degradation of compassion and empathy in the public square, wherever it appears.

But we also have to focus more on what we’re building with our speech and actions. If we spend all of our time focused on what’s going wrong in the world, we train ourselves only to see these problems. We have to start thinking about what solutions look like, what kind of world we want to build. Instead of highlighting and excoriating toxic behavior, we should start building consensus on the behavior we need to replace it with and embodying the virtues we value instead. Shifting our gaze towards the things we want to love and encourage could have a powerful effect on how we fight against the injustice and corruption plaguing our society.

I’ve spent so much of these past several years being angry, despairing, overwhelmed. I’ve lived it enough to know that I can’t actually help anyone that way. I have to find the things that make me hopeful about the world we live in. I have to spread the things that make us feel less afraid and alone. I won’t ignore the terrible things that happen, but I will change how I respond to them.

Today is the final day of Kwanzaa, and the principle we focus on is that of Faith (Imani). Faith is not a popular idea in the circles I run in. Those of us who have escaped the orbit of fundamentalist or evangelical Christianity have had a poisoned relationship with the idea. But after all this time, I’m re-examining it. Faith, after all, doesn’t mean blind devotion to an unprovable higher power — or even the people who claim to speak for it. It can be a choice, in the absence of evidence, to believe that there are more good people than bad and that we will do right by each other…eventually.

But faith without works is dead. Having faith in the goodness of people means we must behave as if people are good — even when they do bad things. There has to be a way back into the light for those who voted for Trump, who have been shameless with their bigotry, who have done awful things. Even if someone has crossed an unforgiveable line for us, they have to be allowed some way to repent and rehabilitate. We can’t keep punishing each other and expect a better society to rise from that. We can’t keep shaming people into being better.

We must show them how by being the people we want them to be. We have to imagine how we would want someone to call us out and how we would want to be forgiven when we mess up, and extend that same kindness to others. We can’t get through our problems by forcing the people who’ve caused them to accept blame, by making sure they’re punished for what they do. It might be necessary for our sense of justice, and I won’t argue with that. But it doesn’t solve the problem, and to me that’s the most pressing priority.

In 2020 I will try my hardest to be the kind of person I think there needs to be more of in the world. I will do my best to be kind, as compassionate as I can be, honest and earnest, loving, joyful, equanimous. I will be firm in denouncing harmful actions, but I will engage the people who take those actions as gently as I can. Anger can be fuel, but we still have to be careful about where it takes us. I want my anger to fuel me towards a better world, and I want people to be mindful of how they’re spending their fuel as well. Let’s learn to sit with our anger, until we’re sure we’re taking a proper stand with it.

 
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Posted by on January 1, 2020 in Buddhism, Politics, Self-Reflection

 

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What I Learned This Month (January 2019)

30 Jan

Self Improvement 150January is usually dominated by two things for me: stress-testing the routines I’ve developed to fall into better habits, and Further Confusion 2019. The convention this year was actually pretty fun: I enjoyed myself at my panels, met a lot of really awesome people, and rediscovered my love of selling books (I was a relief volunteer at the FurPlanet table). As I get older, I become more aware of the ways in which I can stretch myself and which avenues for experimentation are just not going to work out for me. Parties and dances are for younger, more extroverted animals: give me a few quiet gathering amongst good friends and I’m much happier. The routines I wanted to build for the first month of the year didn’t quite fare as well, and that’s mostly because of the depression that blindsided me early and lingered on until…well, a few days ago.

I’ve talked a bit about it in a previous post from the month, but living with chronic depression is a bit of a balancing act. On one hand, you build coping mechanisms and treatments that make the depressive spells less frequent and less severe, to the point that you start to let your guard down. And on the other hand, there’s a small part of you that knows a depression could happen at any time, triggered by anything — an off-hand comment from a friend, or a particularly bad day at work, or a string of unsatisfying evenings at home.

Not that the triggers are ever really the things that, well, trigger it. The chemical networks inside the brain are so complex and mutable it feels like a global weather pattern inside my head, one that’s prone to fronts that will stall and dump a ton of rain where it’s least needed. Sometimes, conditions become just right for a storm. You get better at watching out for the signs, and the lead time you have to prepare increases, but nothing changes the fact that these storms are a fact of life and when they come there’s nothing you can do but hunker down and wait it out.

And that’s what January felt like, mostly — losing half the month to a storm that developed quickly but lingered once it arrived. I fell into a lot of bad habits during that depressive spell. I woke up and checked the Twitter outrage machine instead of meditating. I kept emotions bottled up thinking that I could deal with them, until I really couldn’t. I didn’t even try to do things that would make the depression less severe; I simply indulged a lot of my worst impulses. I could only tell how bad the depression was once I was out of it, and could actually hold a perspective that included other people. It’s not exactly fun to come back to yourself and find out that you weren’t holding things together nearly as well as you thought.

This month I learned that it’s important to carve out more time and space for self-care even when things are going well. A lot of issues that came up during my depression were lingering for a while, but I set them aside because I thought I could handle them — and I could, as long as the weather held. As soon as it broke, though, my ability to deal with things went straight to hell. So did, unfortunately, my ability to handle disagreements in a measured way. I’ve learned that while there’s value in not sweating the small stuff, for folks like me it’s also important to know there’s no such thing when you’re stuck in a depression.

I’ve also learned that my skewed perspective in depression can make it very easy for me to catastrophize criticism, which makes me hyper-defensive. So much of my anxiety is wrapped up in how I’m perceived by the people whose opinions matter to me — managers at work, friends and colleagues I admire, even you, dear reader. I want to present an image of this deep thinker who is earnest and strives to live his life according to Buddhist principles, but in reality I’m…just as selfish and prone to cognitive biases as the next person. I’ve had this deep and abiding fear since childhood that if anyone ever got to know “the real me” they would hate it and leave, and I suppose that never went away. In a depression, if someone criticizes me, even gently, I hear “I’ve learned something about you that I don’t like so you’d better change it or I’m out.”

This is not, I know, what my friends are saying. I can even understand that to a degree in the throes of depression, but it’s impossible to check that first panicked reaction. The instinct to PRESERVE MY IMAGE overrides any better, rational response. I know that I should care less about what people think, that I should be true to myself, and that part of the Buddhist practice means being as clear and honest as possible. I’m working to dismantle the thought patterns that were built to survive my childhood, and making progress. But when I’m unable to cope, they’re still there, deep down. There’s more work to do.

Through it all, I’ve also thought a lot about writing and what kind of stories I want to put out there. Thinking a lot about Terry Pratchett and his Discworld novels, and what makes them so good. How I can incorporate the things I love most about them (his characterization! His world-building! His crackling dialogue!) into my own writing. And also, realizing that it’s kind of essential for me to get ahead of my Patreon serial so I can actually put in some editing work as well.

All of this prepares me for a February of deeper engagement and self-reflection. I think next month I might go a little slower, but work harder to make the things I do that little bit better. I will also need to think about the things I really need to have in order to do the things that matter to me. Mostly, this will involve identifying my favorite means of self-sabotage and working against them whenever possible.

I hope all of you had a great month that taught you a lot about yourselves and the world! What was the best thing you learned since 2019? Let me know!

 
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Posted by on January 30, 2019 in Buddhism, mental-health, Self-Reflection, Writing

 

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Depressional Confessional

16 Jan

Myth 150I like to think I’m a pro at being depressed. Some of my earliest memories as a kid, looking back, suggest to me that I’ve had severe depressive episodes all the way back to elementary school. One particular experience I had in middle school, now that I think about it, had to have been an emotional breakdown. As I’ve gotten older I’ve learned to recognize the shifting weather in my brain much the same way a village elder can sense a storm coming in their bones. It’s not any one thing — it’s a bunch of small things that point to a vague, indescribable feeling that my brain is fixing to turn sour.

There was an inkling last Tuesday that my mind was curdling. It’s hard to describe, but I’ll try anyway. My depressions typically start with an increased paranoia and some obsessing — it’s like my brain is catching on a thought that it keeps circling back to. The thought itself can be anything from “I’m fat and broken” to “All of your friends think you’re lame.” but the effect is the same. It’s a whisper underneath the usual chatter that I can’t help but listen to. It starts to color my interactions with other people. I start to get really…nervous.

My experience with long-term depression is that this voice never really goes away, but you learn to accept it and move on with your day. There are some times, though, where the coping mechanisms you’ve built begin to fail and your ability to accept this voice becomes more difficult, requires more concentration. Over the course of hours and days, the constant refrain saps your energy and other things begin to slip. You’re a bit less patient with the people you meet. You don’t have enough willpower to make good choices. You begin to beat yourself up about the things you do to perpetuate the spiral. Your perspective gets skewed; the voice is joined by other voices, happy to remind you about every failing you have or every big mistake you’ve made. Eventually, you just collapse. You can’t fight your own brain any more, and you’re back in the pit.

The worst part about the whole process is that I’ve been through it often enough to recognize it, to know that this is the manifestation of a chemical imbalance in my brain. The knowledge doesn’t stop it from happening, and that’s its own kind of frustration. You see people with better coping mechanisms, or no inkling of the problem, and it makes me wish that I didn’t have this broken brain that required me to put so much energy into just managing to be a functioning adult. You try to eat right, you try to get enough sleep, you exercise, you take your pills — and sometimes, that’s still not enough. There are still days, weeks, months that disappear into a black void.

When I’m in the worst of it, it feels like there’s no possible way for other people to understand what this feels like. A lot of folks see depression as having no energy, or being unable to feel happy, or being a lump on the couch. What isn’t seen is all the mental work that goes into trying to get off the couch, or scrounging for enough energy to get things done, or maybe to keep from crying at work for no reason. The shut down isn’t necessarily from a lack of spoons; the spoons are being eaten up to put on clothes, have a conversation with someone else, to smile. The energy we have is being depleted by an internal process that most never see or experience. Depression isn’t laziness or lethargy: it’s exhaustion.

Thankfully, mindfulness training and therapy has taught me to recognize these stretches for what they are, and experience has given me a toolset to use so I can mitigate the “damage”. It’s easier for me to push through when I get depressed, so I can go to work and take care of chores and even try to keep up meditation and exercise. The pit isn’t as deep as it used to be, and I can find my way out of it a bit more quickly. I’m grateful for that, even when I wish I didn’t have to fall into it at all.

But that’s not something within my control. Depression is a disease. For some of us, it only happens once or twice after a big change. For some, the cycle can give us years where we never have to think about it. For me, it’s a constant factor in my everyday life. Every thought — especially any negative one — has to be tested. Is this depression? Is this legitimate? Do I feel as bad as I do because I should, or because of this illness?

It’s a hard thing to accept, but I’m working on it. Even though I feel as if I’m clambering up out of the pit now, I know that it’s possible for me to slide back into it again. When I get out, I know that there’s another pit up ahead waiting for me. Despite my best efforts, I will fall again and again and again. But I have trained myself to see them, to navigate around them, to climb out as best I can when I fall in. And I have a support network of friends and professionals that I can trust to have my back. That’s something a lot of us don’t have, and words can’t describe how grateful and lucky I feel when I think about it.

If you’re dealing with depression, please know that you are not alone. Please know that you won’t feel this way forever. Please know that with patient persistence, you can build coping mechanisms that will make the depressions shallower and less frequent. Maybe they can’t go away completely, but at least you can weather them. Your strength and resilience is better than you know. It helps me when I’ve fallen in and can’t see a way out. After all this time, I have faith that there is.

 
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Posted by on January 16, 2019 in Buddhism, mental-health, Self-Reflection

 

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(Personal) Thoughts From a 38 Year Old

06 Aug

Today is my birthday. It is also the anniversary of the first time atomic weapons were ever used in war, when Hiroshima was bombed on this date in 1945. I’m fascinated by this face, and I like to tell people whenever I talk about my birthday. I used to think I did this because it was an extension of My Brand (â„¢) — self-deprecating comments, weird and unrelatable humor, random uncomfortable facts that no one quite knows what to do with. But over the years, as I keep thinking about Hiroshima and what happened to hundreds of thousands of people decades before I was born, I learned that this is just one of the ways I keep myself in proper perspective. I am celebrating myself on a day that reminds so many of unfathomable pain.

I want to talk (again) about compassion. Recently I’ve been reciting a version of the Bodhisattva Vow every morning as a demonstration to my commitment to my most important virtue:

However innumerable beings are, I vow to meet them with kindness and interest.
However inexhaustible the states of suffering are, I vow to touch them with patience and love.
However immeasurable the Dharmas are, I vow to explore them deeply.
However incomparable the mystery of interbeing, I vow to surrender to it freely.

Learning to be a compassionate and kind person is my life’s work. I have vowed to dedicate every moment of my life, every action I take, towards spreading compassion and kindness however I can. Of course, I’m just some guy. I have my own damage and my own limitations that makes this challenging work. I may never achieve the kind of radical, all-radiating compassion that I want to inhabit. There are still people who tie me up in emotional knots whenever I think about them, and when my heart turns towards them it still hardens instinctively.

But that’s OK. I know that this is a learned response to intense pain I’ve endured in the past. In order to understand these difficult people and accept them, I must also accept and understand the pain that lives within me. When I feel myself becoming angry and unbending, I know now that’s a signal flare from the many scars I bear, calling me to tend to it. In order to properly heal it, I must learn to hold my pain with patience and love. When I can do this, I can see into the pain of others more easily through THEIR actions, and learn to hold theirs with the same patience, the same love.

We live in a time that feels like two sides are marshalling their forces for the total war that allowed up to 145,000 lives being lost through the most destructive act in military history. As we entrench our positions and collect our troops, we begin to think of the other side as abstractions, as extensions of their ideals instead of grasping, complicated human beings just like us. We call them The Enemy, The GOP, The Administration — we call their supporters fascists and racists and white supremacists. Make no mistake, these labels fit; I’m not saying that we shouldn’t call them what they are, now more than ever.

But at the same time it’s important to remember that they are more than these labels, just as we are so much more than what they call us. If we lose sight of their humanity, if we make them less real, we are priming ourselves towards inhumane actions. We are whetting our appetite to inflict more suffering, not eliminate it. That is a dangerous road. While dropping the first atomic bomb on Hiroshima ultimately lead to the end of World War II, it also dramatically increased the suffering of millions directly, billions of us over time and space. We have lived in the shadow of that action ever since, and to this day we fear the time when just one of those weapons will be used again. If it happens, the world will again change into something we cannot recognize.

I think about the many articles these days that ask us to listen to the Trump voter or the white supremacist, or offers the reason for their destructive, hateful actions as mere economic anxiety. The reason so many Americans are falling into the trap of fascism is much the same that so many Germans did — a deep frustration about their inability to feel safe and secure with their families, and the mistaken perception that this is because of some foreign interest taking resources from a system that enables it. In order to break the spell these people are under, we must first understand the very human motivations that enable them to do such monstrous things. If we can do that, we can respond to it with the patience and love that we use to hold our own pain.

This is a very difficult thing to ask of people, especially when we’re afraid of what these people are willing to do (and have done) in order to claim a bit of happiness for themselves. So many of us have been through so much, and we have given our understanding and compassion so often and it’s meant nothing. Many of us are tired, sick, terrified. How can we be asked to be vulnerable enough to feel the pain of our enemies when they are also posing an immediate and existential threat to us and the communities we’ve worked so hard to build. I understand why there are so many people who reject out of hand the notion to keep extending compassion to those who have weaponized our principles to silence our protest and haze the issue. But I also feel that the only way to keep the proper perspective — to keep seeing these people as people — is to treat them as such. I’ve fallen into the trap of dehumanizing Trump supporters, and it’s made it so much more difficult to be the person I want to be because of it. I just can’t do it anymore.

That being said, I wouldn’t think about telling anyone else to try to be compassionate towards someone who wants to render them second-class citizens, strip away their basic human rights, who are completely fine with separating families and putting children in cages. We are rightfully shocked and angry about the abuses that continue to pile up under this regime, and I believe that the comparisons to 1930s Germany are apt. This is a very dangerous time, and we are facing very dangerous people who are dedicated to eradicating anyone who doesn’t fit their idea of what America should be. We can’t let that happen. We can’t allow these people to extinguish the hope of a compassionate society because we’re too worried about how much it diminishes us.

But we can fight in ways that allow us to uphold our own principles. What I would tell other people is to try to be as kind as you can. Kindness is in such short supply these days, and that, I believe, is the root of our problems as a society. If you can only be kind to your family, friends, and allies — focus on being as kind to them as you can. Fight the enemy, but be mindful that the fight doesn’t blind you to the necessity of compassion. The more you understand the people around you, the more you can tend to the needs expressed by their actions. All of us just want to be happy, and to feel safe. Some of us think this is a zero-sum game, that they can’t be happy or safe with us in the world, but we know better. The more compassion we share, the safer and happier the world becomes.

All we can do is the best we can do. I’m still finding the best way to walk my path, but I have traveled down the road of “righteous” hate and I didn’t like the places it lead me to. I can’t tolerate bigotry or willful ignorance, and I don’t think I can forget the things people have done to bring us to the state we’re in. But I can’t hate them anymore. I want them to feel happy. I want them to feel safe. I want them to be free from suffering. Because I believe that’s how all of us get out of this alive. That’s the future we work for. That’s the world we build.

I am so grateful that I’ve made it to 38 years old today. My heart is so heavy for the victims and descendants of the Hiroshima bombing. I worry about my country, gripped in the fear of the future and trapped in its trance. I vow to attend all of these feelings, to meet them with kindness. I vow to extend this same kindness to all of you, as much as I’m able.

 
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Posted by on August 6, 2018 in Buddhism, Self-Reflection

 

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(Personal) Tharn

16 Jul

Myth 150It’s been a rough summer for me, anxiety-wise. The news is full of terrible stories from the current president’s administration in the United States, and it’s coming so fast the scandals just bleed together. Saying the President or his Cabinet has done something awful that threatens the fabric of democracy is like saying water is wet at this point — it’s hard to keep up the outrage and drive to do something when you feel like anyone in power won’t do anything to resolve the mess we’re in. Honestly, the best I can do is hang on for the 2018 midterm elections in the hope that the Blue Wave manifests and Democrats take the House and/or Senate. For now, it’s hard to know how we stop anything — even the atrocious Supreme Court nominees.

If political news isn’t bad enough, environmental news fills me with an existential dread. This summer has already been extraordinarily hot, with a number of records broken all over the world. Hurricane season has started, and there are so many people in island nations who have yet to recover from the last round of devastation. We’re seeing the first obvious effects of climate change right now, and these effects will only become more pronounced over the years. Here in the US, our government’s response is to remove all references to the phenomenon from all departmental documents.

Despite the fact that police officers are still killing unarmed people of color, we’re still at the part of the conversation where we need to convince people it’s a problem. People of color are being harassed in the street, reported to the police for anything from doing their jobs to using the community pool, beaten and killed through racist criminal actions; but we can’t seem to convince people that the racist rhetoric of the President and others associated with him are responsible for the rise in white supremacist terrorist activity. Newspapers would rather legitimize ignorant, irresponsible, bigoted thinking in editorials and human interest articles than hold the administration accountable for what it has enabled. Trump voters, the people responsible for this state of affairs, are still having their feelings centered while the poor and disadvantaged suffer horribly.

Most days, it’s more than I can take. I can’t look at the news because there’s nothing I can do about the knot it generates in my stomach. I can’t look at Twitter because my timeline is full of anger about the terrible things that people in the various communities I belong to are saying, or what the social media platforms are letting others get away with. It’s difficult to talk about something I love or promote what I’m writing when I see retweets for someone’s GoFundMe to pay for medical expenses, or the latest in jaw-dropping evil from the people in power. The idea of engaging in a world that feels so cruel, so aggressively and stubbornly ignorant, so inhumane — it fills me with dread.

I don’t want to be the person who looks away from the pain in the world and chases what fleeting, shallow pleasure he can manage while everything burns down around him. But it feels like this is what I have to do in order to stay sane these days. What good does it do to spread awareness about problems I could never hope to fix? What’s the point of arguing with someone who isn’t interested in understanding your experience, only shutting you up so they don’t have to feel bad about what they do? Why contribute to all the noise when no one’s listening anyway? Why try to save the planet when those with the actual means to do so would rather figure out how to build bunkers to survive the apocalypse?

It’s been so hard to see a way out of this predicament. Even if our current President is impeached and removed from office, the Vice-President is still a religious zealot who would do many of the same things but with far more socially-acceptable language. We still have an entire political party that enabled this disaster for the sole purpose of hanging on to power. We still have at least a quarter to a third of Americans who support what’s happening, who will refuse any attempts we make to fix this. We’re still just one bad election from having all of this happen all over again.

I don’t know what to do with that. I truly wish I had more faith in us as a species. I wish that I could be more hopeful about our ingenuity, our ability to come together, our resilience. I wish I could see us becoming a society that prizes intelligence and expertise again, that honors the sacrifice of personal comforts so that we can actually take care of the people in our community. But I just can’t from where I’m sitting. There’s always going to be a sizable chunk of people out there who only care about devoting themselves to their worst impulses, and those people will likely have the money and power needed to keep the rest of us from doing anything about that.

I’m tired, and I know that there’s a very long way to go before anything will be OK. I don’t know how to change the minds that need to be changed at this point — certainly not in time to prevent the death of our civilization at our own hand. It feels inevitable, and the only thing to do is decide what kind of people we will be when it happens.

I know how this sounds, and I want to be clear that I’m not giving up. I still write, I still try to be the change I want to see, I still help where and when I can. But the fatalism is something I’ve had to push through in order to motivate myself, and that kind of sustained effort takes a lot out of you after a while.

What’s strange is that this doesn’t feel like depression, though I’m fairly sure it is. It just doesn’t feel irrational to think this way; things are terrible, and those in power are pretending they aren’t, and there’s not a lot we can do to change that. Still, there’s nothing for it but to keep trying to make the world around us better. We can’t do nothing, even when it feels like anything we could do won’t matter.

That’s where my head’s at right now, and I know it’s not the best place. Still, I thought I’d write about it here just to put it out there.

 
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Posted by on July 16, 2018 in mental-health, Politics, Self-Reflection

 

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(Self-Improvement) In Praise of Mistakes

11 Jul

Self Improvement 150Mistakes are a fundamental part of the human condition — almost as much as our fear of making them. Because of the way we’re designed and the reality we live in, we’re imperfect creatures limited by our experience, perspective and the momentum of habit. It’s natural that these things would push us to do something we regret from time to time, and there’s nothing wrong with that. As long as we learn from our mistakes and apply those lessons to what we do moving forward, they act as a valuable tool for self-improvement. So why are we so often paralyzed by the mere possibility of screwing up, and why do we find it so hard to own up or forgive others for what they’ve done? I think it’s because we’re socially conditioned to think of mistakes as an aberration that we somehow have the power to avoid, and until we recognize that and reckon with it our relationship with our mistakes will be unbalanced.

It’s simply impossible to avoid making any mistakes at any point in our lives, but we all live with the unspoken narrative that we must aim for perfection and nothing less than success will do. As we move through school, we’re conditioned to learn that mistakes lead to lower grades and failed classes, parental disapproval, disappointment from your teachers, the limiting of future opportunities. We’re constantly under the threat of dire consequences resulting from our mistakes, to the point that it’s more important to study for the test than it is to actually absorb information. Even when we leave the gauntlet of testing, that template for life informs everything we do. Through a crucial 12-year period of our lives, a deeply seeded fear of being wrong is cultivated within us.

We walk through our lives terrified of being wrong or worse, being seen as ignorant. One of the fascinating things I’ve learned as a tech professional is how much energy is spent at work covering our own mistakes and deficiencies; instead of admitting when we’ve messed up or that we don’t know something (even when maybe we should), we forge ahead without stopping to take the opportunity to better ourselves. Maybe this inclination isn’t entirely down to our history. Maybe our managers or colleagues foster an environment where asking questions or addressing mistakes are an annoyance at best and career-ending at worst. Because no one makes room for our imperfection, we never think to give that space to ourselves.

So our mistakes and ignorance become a source of shame, something we have to hide. And when there’s a risk of exposure, we panic — the subconscious memory of bad grades, parent-teacher conferences, ostracization and ridicule seizes our lizard brain and short-circuits our ability to cope. There’s this implication of a “set mindset”, that we as adults should be fully-formed and know about anything we come across. If we don’t, then we’re failures; everyone can see the “F” branded on our foreheads. Because the state of our knowledge is frozen, we freeze when we learn our knowledge is incomplete.

We internalize the idea that no one will forgive us for the mistakes we make, or the things we do not know. We learn that we can’t forgive ourselves for them. And if we can’t forgive ourselves, we sure as hell can’t forgive other people. If we’re expected to know everything and get it right the first time, how can we expect anything less from other people?

So when the mistakes and imperfections of others are exposed, we try to make it as visible as possible so the offense can never be hidden or denied. We demand that they look at what their ignorance has led them to and apologize for it. We demand the most severe consequences — expulsion from our communities, the end of their careers, exile into the social and professional desert. We demand the performance of remorse, the acceptance of their punishment, the enforcement of their disappearance. But what if one of our mistakes was exposed in all of its ugliness? How hard would it be to reckon with it, all laid bare for everyone to see? How impossible would it be to deal with the personal shame and self-doubt while the harshest criticisms rain down from the people in your community? Could you have the presence of mind to construct the perfect apology, accept the hyperbolic disparagement of your character, submit to the exile demanded of you? Could you resist the urge to push back or deflect blame, even a little?

I’m not saying that we should simply brush off mistakes or ignorance — when spotted, they should be exposed. We have to look our flaws honestly, but we have to know that we’re trying to do so in order to learn the lessons we need from them. If we’re too paralyzed by fear of exposure and deep shame, there’s just not enough room for us to grow.

I should also be clear that not every transgression is a “mistake” or the result of ignorance. Some actions are the result of willful malice, and some people use ignorance as cover for the consequences of that. It’s a bad-faith tactic that must also be exposed for what it is. Acceptance of mistakes and tolerance of ignorance can be tempered with with the expectation that all of us be accountable for our actions and their consequences.

But we don’t have to make those consequences so drastic that honest mistakes upend the lives of the people who make them. We can allow for our imperfection while still working to make sure we learn how to be mindful of it. Accepting our own ignorance and capacity to really fuck up every once in a while softens the tension we have with our own flaws. We can learn to embrace the messiness of our condition gently, with compassion. We can extend that compassion from ourselves to others. We can forgive ourselves and other people, and in the space that creates we can develop into braver, kinder people.

I think it has to start with us, so I’d like to recommend an exercise that consists of three basic steps. One, think about the last mistake you made or the last time you tried to cover up your own ignorance. Two, accept the mistake or ignorance by stating aloud (or as publicly as you’re comfortable with) what it was honestly. Three, forgive yourself by saying “I forgive myself for my mistake (or ignorance). I accept my imperfection with compassion.” and then state what you’ve learned from it.

I’ll start. I often make commitments — explicit or implicit — to help people or collaborate but then end up being very inconsistent or late with my end of things. I can think of so many people who’ve been disappointed by this, and whose work has been affected by my shortcoming. I sincerely apologize for not delivering the things I’ve promised in a timely or consistent manner.

I also forgive myself for this mistake. I accept my imperfection with compassion. I’ve learned to be more careful about my commitments, and to work harder to do the things I say I do when they’re expected of me. I’ll do my best to be better in the future.

We all make mistakes, and we’re all wrong at some point. Demanding perfection from ourselves and others, or demanding severe punishments for mistakes or ignorance, only deepens the training we’ve received to think of our natural imperfections as something unacceptable. It’s an unhealthy mindset that leads to unhealthy actions and a bad relationship with our own selves. In order to be kinder, more fearless, and happier, we have to examine our ingrained response to mistakes and give ourselves (and others) the room to grow and change.

And there’s no time like the present to start doing this. What mistake or bit of ignorance would you like to forgive within yourself?

 
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Posted by on July 11, 2018 in Buddhism, mental-health, Self-Reflection

 

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(Personal) A Writer’s Almanac: July 2018

02 Jul

Self Improvement 150We’re in the second half of the year, and now would be an excellent time to review my progress on my New Year’s Resolutions. I’m not going to do that, though; I know I’ve done a terrible job with what I aimed to do in 2018 and I know why.

So July is going to be the month that I focus intensely on building a consistent writing routine by scheduling at least an hour a day towards working on The Writing Desk or the Jackalope Serial Company. But wait, there’s more! I’m setting a goal of at least 30 minutes a day for reading, and at least 15 minutes a day for meditation. This isn’t an “all or nothing” goal. I realize that there might be some days I just won’t be able to get something done. But this should at least be the minimum of what I’m doing every day as a writer.

The key, of course, is making sure I’m not in my own way. Every Sunday, I’ll take a bit of time to look ahead and see what might cause a problem with reading, writing, or meditation; then I’ll see what I need to do in order to plan around it. Maybe that means writing at lunch or getting up earlier to make sure I get my reading in. Maybe it means cutting out something else to make sure writing, reading and meditation takes priority. No matter what, I want to make sure I’m chaining together writing, reading and meditation days as often as possible.

THE WRITING DESK
This month, the goal is 13 posts here (including this one). I’d like to write ahead as much as possible, making sure that regular posts (like Fiction Friday) are written and edited well ahead of time. That’ll mean front-loading the writing here so that I’m not panicking the night before to make sure something’s done.

For Fiction Friday this month I’ll be writing about a ‘new’ werebear who finds out he has the affliction of ursanthropy in the most unusual of ways. Werebears are my jam, shut up. 🙂

THE JACKALOPE SERIAL COMPANY
This is another project that I would feel a lot better about if I could get ahead of it. Right now, the plan is to have a weekly serial that’s a bit looser but hopefully entertaining; then, for folks who have been donating at the higher tiers a longer-form serial that drops once or twice a month. First, though, I’ll have to be regular with the weekly serials.

Right now I’m “auditioning” four different ideas for the weekly serials. The next two will be up later this week with voting taking place next week. Patrons will get the most time to vote, with the poll going up on Monday; on Wednesday, the poll link will go up on Twitter; and on Friday, folks who follow me on SoFurry will be able to get in on the action before it closes on Saturday. Over that week, I’ll be doing my best to write ahead for whichever serial gets the biggest boost.

The high-tier serial will most likely start with “Boundaries”, which will run for seven parts at least. I don’t think I should start posting that until August, though — I really want to get into the rhythm of regular release, and I’d love to make sure I have at least three parts written before the first one is released. We’ll see how it goes.

OTHER WRITING
The big theme for this year has been self-rejecting out of a number of opportunities, just because I couldn’t get myself together in time. I’d really love to stop that and get better about writing for periodicals and anthologies I’m excited about with plenty of time to edit and get feedback; that’s going to take regular practice and a better eye on submission windows when they’re available.

For now, I’m using the Jackalope Serial Company as my chance to write towards a deadline on a somewhat regular basis, and to make sure that I’m doing my part to make sure the work gets done on time. Once I’m a bit more confident with that, I’ll start sniffing around to see where the most exciting chances to submit my work are.

READING
I’m reading “Radical Acceptance” by Tara Brach, and I think I’ll be working on that quite a bit this month. I’ve read the book before, but I’m going through it again because I gifted it to a friend to (hopefully) help with his Anxiety Disorder. I’ve been getting a lot more from it this time, which is a little surprising; I’ve loved the book for a long time now, but I guess the lessons needed a bit more time and experience for their intended impact.

I’m also reading “Steppenwolf” by Hermann Hesse to see if it might be a good novel for the Furry Canon project over on [adjective][species]. I’m not sure it is, but it is a fascinating read on its own merits. The main character presents his existential crisis in uniquely furry terms, and the deconstruction of it reveals a lot about the potential benefits and problems with constructing and inhabiting a furry identity for one’s self. I’m going to keep pretending to be a jackalope regardless, but the criticism helps me to be a lot more mindful of how that self-concept can go sideways.

Beyond the daily quota for writing, reading and meditating, I didn’t want to have very specific goals this month. The most important thing is putting in the time; we’ll see what needs to be worked on next once I figure out that part.

What about you, fellow writers and bloggers? What goals do you have for this month? And how did you do with your writing in June?

 
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Posted by on July 2, 2018 in Reading, Self-Reflection, Writing

 

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(Mental Health) My Depression

07 May

Myth 150Back when I was 14 or 15, my sister ran away from home for a month and it straight-up wrecked me. We had no idea where she was or if I would ever see her again, and it was the first time we had been apart for that length of time. Growing up, we were pretty close; she protected me from the neighborhood bullies because she was a little spitfire and I told her stories and made our meals when Mom was occupied. We had often made a game of running away together, planning our escape route and the best time to steal away; but this time, she left without me and I had never seen it coming. She was one of the only people I felt I could rely on.

During that month I was in a haze. I remember being even more quiet than usual, and it felt like I was moving and thinking through cotton — slow, muffled, distant. When I got home from school, I didn’t know what to do or what I had the energy for, so I would sit on the floor and stare at the back of the couch until it was time to go to bed. Looking back through decades of experience, I can say that was the first time I ever had an episode of major depression.

Major Depressive Disorder is a mental illness that affects over 200 million people worldwide; it can strike anyone at any time, but it tends to affect women more than men and first diagnosis frequently happens between 20 – 35 years old. Common symptoms include a persistent, inescapble low mood; anhedonia, or an inability to experience pleasure — even with things that you used to love; feelings of guilt and worthlessness; insomnia; fatigue; loss of appetite. There are a number of depression disorders, besides. Atypical Depression, for example, tends to manifest earlier and sufferers will respond to good news with an increased mood, but also eat more with low moods and tend to sleep more during episodes. People with atypical depression also have a very high sensitivity to social rejection.

There’s Persistent Depressive Disorder or dysthmia, a less-severe but chronic state of depression lasting for over two years. There’s Bipolar Disorder, where a depressive state “swings” into a normal mood or manic state. There’s Post-Partum Depression, in which a woman experiences a disabling episode of low mood after giving birth. There’s Seasonal Affective Disorder, where bouts of depression happen during a particular season. All of these conditions can cause real difficulties in the lives of people who are coping with them. They affect our ability to be consistent with our work, attentive in our relationships, resilient with our setbacks, content with our lives. These mood disorders make it hard for us to maintain an even perspective about ourselves and the world around us, even with treatment.

That’s because depression is a disease that affects the brain, the one organ we rely on to interpret all the stimuli we get everywhere else. Because the brain is so complicated we’re not entirely sure how depression is caused, but we do know there are several areas of the brain that tend to be affected. Neurotransmitters — the chemicals that stimulate brain activity and give us the ability to think, feel, and make connections — tend to have a harder time working in depressed people, and some areas of the brain are different. The hippocampus, the part of the brain responsible for long-term memory and recollection, tends to be smaller in depressed people; the amygdala, a group of structures associated with base emotions like fear, sadness, and arousal, tends to be more active as well. This combination, especially in depressed people, could explain why it’s easier for us to remember past events that are associated with intensely negative emotions while we tend to forget the things that counteract the internal narrative that preserves our low self-esteem.

Because depression can be caused by either having too few neurotransmitters, or having receptors that are too sensitive or not sensitive enough to them, or an overly-aggressive reuptake system that sweeps them our of our synapses, it’s difficult to say with any clarity which treatment works best; every one of us who deals with depression has a distinct mix of physical, neurological, genetic and environmental factors. Some of us that respond well to medication might have a lot of trouble with talk therapy, while some of us who can manage quite well with lifestyle changes and behavioral therapy might suffer intense side effects with medication. For most of us, some combination of therapy and medication often does the trick — though it can be a process finding the right therapist and/or medication. No one treatment is better than any other; the best treatment for your depression is the one that makes it more manageable for you.

Depression can manifest differently depending on your age, gender, environment and cultural background, but there are no hard and fast rules. Men tend to be more irritable or have trouble controlling anger; women might become more withdrawn; young people might become more reckless or less able to concentrate. It can be really difficult for Black Americans with depression to receive proper treatment for a host of reasons — we are often expected to “fight through” emotional pain, and the cultural stigma about mental illness is still fairly strong. There is a distrust of doctors, especially psychiatrists, and there is too little value placed on openly discussing our feelings. Beyond that, the dominant culture often misreads the expression of a mental illness and either misdiagnoses it or misses the diagnosis completely. While the field is just starting to take a culturally competent approach to mental health care, it still has a long way to go.

It can be easy to dismiss depression as an “imaginary” disease simply because the factors that determine its causes, diagnosis, and treatment are so complicated and can often feel subjective. I understand how it can look from the outside that those of us within the mental health space are just stumbling around in the dark, guessing at definitions and such. But just because something isn’t well-understood doesn’t mean it isn’t real; just because our understanding about something is fuzzy doesn’t mean that thing can’t be pinpointed exactly.

I’ve been dealing with depression for my entire life, and I’ve only recently been fortunate enough to have the ability for treatment. I’ve attempted suicide twice due to my depression, and I still fight through it every day in order to live the best life I can. I know that I’m more likely to have depression because I’m the child of a schizophrenic, and the hereditary link between that mental illness and offspring is well-established. I’ve seen every one of my siblings suffer with their own issues; I know one of my nephews will need to learn how to cope with it. These are facts.
My personal experience with depression has taught me a few things about how to relate to it. All the stuff they tell you about sleep, diet and exercise? Absolutely true, with perhaps sleep being the most important. Being active really does help, especially if it gets you outdoors and in the sun for some time. I can often feel when an ’emotional trough’ is coming on, because it becomes harder to concentrate and I find myself unable to be interested in things; when this happens, I can ‘prepare’ for what’s coming by making sure I focus more on self-care than productivity. It doesn’t stop it from happening, but it becomes easier to ride out.

Depression, for me, is intensely associated with self-worth. I become paralyzed by the idea that I have nothing worthwhile to say or that I can’t say anything in a way that engages or affects other people. I feel stupid and boring and permanently, unfixably broken. It becomes too much effort to do more and more basic things, and my world shrinks steadily because so much becomes unreachable. Cooking something to eat feels like an ordeal; talking to someone to explain how you feel is impossible; doing something for the joy of it feels pointless, and doing something productive feels inconceivable.

My worst spells have all heavily featured unchecked emotional eating (candy and salty chips in alternating waves), being unable to leave my bed or couch, and an overwhelming desire to just sleep forever. Being active, sticking to my routine, finding something to stimulate different parts of my brain — that’s something other people can do. I can’t. Sometimes, even breathing feels painful and exhausting. I need some kind of stimulation, like a TV show or music, but the stimulation doesn’t bring pleasure — just a reprieve from my own thoughts.

Thankfully, I haven’t had a really bad spell in about ten years thanks to Prozac and cognitive behavioral therapy. But I know that it’s unlikely I’ll be off medication at any point in the future, and I’ll need to constantly work on myself to develop better habits and coping strategies. For many others, depression can be a more-intense but less-chronic condition. Some of us have very long cycles that enable us to be fine for years before something knocks us back into that headspace. Some of us will have to wander in the wilderness for a very long time before we find a treatment that works for us.

No matter what, it’s important to remember that depression is a real illness and those of us who cope with it must do so with significant complications. We might not be able to put energy into practices and routines that would help our brain chemistry. We might not be able to afford proper treatment or medication. We might not have a support network to rely on for the things we need. We might have cultural barriers that prevent us from seeking the help we need or getting the proper treatment. It’s a hard enough illness on its own; combined with social, economic and environmental factors it can be that much harder to deal with.

So please, if you can, be easy with the people who are dealing with depression. Recognition and encouragement are vital to shift not only our perspectives, but the perspectives of those around us as well. People with depression aren’t hopeless or crazy; more likely, we’ve just never been given the chance to get the knowledge and help we need.

This is part of a series of post for Mental Health Awareness Month. For more information about what you can do to help build awareness for this often-neglected aspect of our personal health, go to this website: http://www.mentalhealthamerica.net/may.

 
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Posted by on May 7, 2018 in mental-health, Self-Reflection

 

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(Personal) Hello, April

09 Apr

Self Improvement 150Floating in a sensory deprivation tank for an hour was long enough for me to realize that a great deal of my problem is overstimulation. It’s tough for someone sensitive to sensory input to live in a world like this, geared towards making sure something is grabbing your attention all the time. We live at a time where it’s seen as largely acceptable to pay for something with our focus instead of money; think about all of the services we use for ‘free’ in exchange for ads, or the data that companies can use to make ads that much more irresistible. Corporations have learned to use our attention as another potential revenue stream; it’s time we start thinking of it the same way we do our hard-earned money. That’s why this month, I’d like to focus on budgeting my attention and focus the same way I budget my money.

I admit it’s a harder thing to do. Money is a finite resource (just like our attention), but it’s a lot easier to quantify and measure. We know exactly how much money we get in our paychecks, and we can subtract our expenses from our income to know when we’re stepping outside of our means. With attention, it’s not so straightforward. We can’t wake up every day with the intention that we only ‘spend’ 2 hours’ worth of attention on social media, or that today is a ‘no advertisement’ day where we refuse to pay attention to any form of advertising. We can’t slice our focus into discrete chunks, and then decide what parts of our environment we give those chunks to.

But we can be more mindful about when and where something is asking for our attention, and what our reaction to that request might be. On our phones, what apps and games buzz to draw our focus back to the screen? When we’re browsing a website, what links do we click to stay engaged with it, and how do we end up following article after article? When we’re walking or driving outside, what things grab our eyes and hold them? When we watch TV, how many times do we notice ads — especially ones that work around our ability to fast-forward through them?

Any time you notice something using obnoxious or obvious means to attract your attention, think about the process that created the situation. Why would a company risk the ill will of a potential customer just to force us into having to engage with its advertisement? Why on Earth would so many websites auto-play videos when we visit pages? What’s to be gained by forcing us to engage with something?

There are some websites that we might feel are worth paying for with our attention. When they ask us to whitelist them from ad blocking programs, we might be inclined to do so. When Google or Facebook asks for our information in order to better serve ads to them, we might think it’s a fair trade for the useful and convenient services they offer. That’s fine. But it really should be our choice, and I think our modern experience online and in real life isn’t set up in the interest of offering us that choice. Everywhere we go, there is something trying to get us to engage with it; we don’t have the ‘right’ to choose where our attention is going when we enter a public space.

I’m really not sure how we can address this on any big level, but I do know that I will take better notice of things that try to force my attention away from what I’m doing — whether it’s YouTube offering me other videos to watch, IGN auto-playing videos, movies with egregious product placement, or ad ‘stunts’ tricking me into investing time or focus towards something. One of the biggest pet peeves I’ve developed recently is a company taking advantage of my fandom in order to sell me a pile of crap; the endless rebranding initiatives of Marvel Comics and the “mystery box/alternate reality” model of Bad Robot properties immediately comes to mind.

I know enough about myself to know that it’s easy for my attention to be drawn away, and it’s best if I cultivate an environment where I choose when and how to switch my focus from one thing to another. I’ve already disabled almost all notifications on my phone, and whenever a website offers me desktop notifications I decline and resolve to use that website less in the future. I use apps like Ghostery and AdBlock Plus to clean the pages of the sites I visit, and I whitelist only the ones that I use frequently and don’t have obnoxious intrusive ads that pop up, play sound, or ‘trick’ you into being redirected by shifting the close button or using intentionally misleading UI. When I finish one task, or an article or a video, I try to take a breath to recenter myself and make a mindful decision on what to do next. That’s not always successful, for sure, but I’m getting better at this the more I do it.

There are a few other things I’d like to do this month, too. In the interest of making sure I’m on a more solid foundation for life, I’d like to double back and refocus on the basics: meditating every day, reading and writing every day, eating well every day, exercising as often as possible. The very basic building blocks of self-care that give you the best possible shot at being emotionally resilient. So far, it’s…still a process, but failure is bundled into that of course. The trick is to not let failure discourage you; take the lessons you can from it, then move on with a better idea of how to succeed.

So that’s it; being very judicious about my attention and how I’m spending it, then putting that attention to where it will do the most good. How about you folks? What would you like to work on this month?

 
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Posted by on April 9, 2018 in Buddhism, mental-health, Self-Reflection

 

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