Please, (Don't) Have A Seat

For those of us who have office jobs, we sit more than 8+ hours a day excluding the amount of hours we then spend sitting at home in front of our computer, the TV, the coffee table. I don't know about you, but I'm tired of sitting. Next time you plan on offering me a seat, don't. Instead, please offer to take it away. As a friend, you can expect I'd do the same for you.

I've recently been juggling my way back into fitness lately, living a more active life, running around, lifting things, biking as usual, the whole six hundred and seventy nine yards. No, I'm not trying to become the next Governator. This fitness trend is rather drastically different than all previous fitness spells I've gone through. This one is focused on "energy output", or more simply put, getting my heart to pump more blood through my veins each day. Okay, the latter isn't necessarily more simply stated than the first, but the point I hope is clear.

I don't care about building muscle. I care more about how my body feels, and there's hardly a more revitalizing feeling than after having been chugging along outdoors, active, and mobile. Muscles will build on its own. In the meantime, for what seems like the first time, I get to decide wherever, whenever, and however to be active. Even lifting weights, which can seem incredibly regiment at times, instead feels freeing and presents itself as another opportunity to grow, cultivate greater self-awareness, and be more self-accepting and gracious to myself. I just have to keep my heart rate up.

Last week, I was sitting down on the toilet seat in the Seattle office when I noticed a great article posted in front of me on the door about our psoas muscles. If the first thought was, "what the hell is that", read it. I find it rather insightful and important to understand. Combine it with this infographic, and there you have it.

Let's go for a walk (or run)!

Breaking The Mold

Last year, I went on a 5-week trip outside the states. I traveled across seven different countries starting in Sydney, Australia and ending up in Hanoi, Vietnam. I traveled on behalf of work, and I remember feeling incredibly grateful for the opportunity. More than once, it occurred to me that my life has been sheltered within the confines of the states. Confinements consisted mainly between both east and west coasts with a few years spent in between at the mid-west. Otherwise, I didn’t travel much at all. I hardly had the opportunity to. We didn’t travel much as a family outside our immediate time zone, and I’ve never flown outside the country.

On the road and over the course of five weeks, I captured literally hours of footage between my phone, digital camera, and a borrowed Flip MinoHD. I had some expectations for this trip to be life-changing and for it to serve as a continued experience I’d look back on years later to remember distinct moments and memories I’ve created. I set a goal to capture this experience in moving picture, then produce a video of my own to document it.

Video editing is something I thoroughly enjoy, even if it is an innately long grueling process and black hole for people with obsessive tendencies such as myself. It’s no secret. The beauty and transformative power when combining moving pictures with a mood set by your choice of audio soundtrack is simply amazing and incredibly profound. I remember envisioning the final product. I remember feeling so excited at the idea. The trip hadn’t even begun. Yet I was motivated. I was moved and inspired to create something meaningful, profound, and authentic first and foremost to myself. I was anxious to edit and produce my own trip documentary. All I needed was the footage. It’s exactly what I set myself out to do. Capture it.

I captured footage ranging from five second to five minute clips. I captured this, that, and everything in between. I captured everything with every chance I got. I snapped a few stills with my digital camera, put it down, whipped out the Flip, captured the same at a constant 30 frames per second. I captured lots of b-roll footage, knowing I’d need spontaneous footage to use during any number of video transitions. I was diligent and relentless. As I traveled through each destination, I subconsciously acquired a constant mission to capture as much on film everywhere I went. I frequently stopped, took a break to breathe in the air and relax. Then I’d whip out the Flip and get cracking.

I hit my goal. I captured something over 8 hours worth of footage. By the time I got home, I was left with a pile of digital media with less than a clue on what to do with them. I was within a state of organized chaos. I didn’t know how to get started. I was drained. I wasn’t an expert in Final Cut Pro by any means. I had outdone myself. The project quickly jumped from transitioned from being something incredibly exciting to things resembling more the opposite. I felt stifled, stuck, overwhelmed, and incredibly daunted by the sheer amount of raw footage I knew I’d inevitably have to sift through. It’s the equivalent of walking into a living space full of scattered objects, everywhere. I had to organize them all in some shape or form but didn’t know where to get started. I’ve worked on it here and there, but it never stuck. Not until now.

The other weekend, I buckled down and completed the very first of what I suspect will be seven videos total, one for each city and country I visited. My trip went onto the following after starting in Sydney: Manila, Singapore, Kuala Lumpur, Cambodia, Laos, Vietnam. I started with Sydney and pushed through with undivided diligence. I organized and arranged clips from almost 100 clips of of raw footage. It was an incredibly challenging experience but not without a degree of fun and freedom because in the end, it produced an exciting feeling to see my project finally come to life.

While having so many options is often times liberating, it can on the other hand be very stifling. I’m not someone who thrives in situations where options are so plentiful. I thrive better in situations presenting with constraints, giving me the opportunity to problem solve and discover the most optimal way through it. When editing video, the possibilities are nearly infinite multiplied by the seemingly infinite number of routes to achieve each of those possibilities. What’s infinity multiplied by infinity? Eternity.

Needless to say, I finished the video in less than a week but not without sacrificing my physical and mental states. I stayed up till three, four, sometimes six in the morning every night. I mulled over the results, replayed the audio tracks and sequences in my head incessantly over the week. The music, the transitions, the transition durations, opening and closing sequences, you name it. There were critical transition points I replayed in my head constantly as if the more I thought about them, the closer I’d get to achieving perfection. It was the first and last thought of each new day. Every night, I’d edit till my body literally began to droop and fade in a half-upright position with eyes as heavy as sandbags. I didn’t eat dinner. I’d scarf down a few Samosa girl scout cookies instead, which Tricia so thoughtfully gave me as a gift the weekend before. Little did she know how important they’d become in fueling my obsession to complete this project.

Alas, I found myself once again striving for perfection despite my best efforts. I fell again into the never-ending black hole leading to self-deprivation, isolation, and obsession. Yet, I do have a video to show for it. Screw it. I’m happy and proud of myself for accomplishing it.

Shifting Gears

I have never been more committed, convinced, and captivated to pursue a career in clinical therapy. Serious. People who know me I hope need no explanations or reasons why. I hope it’s evident in my way of being. I spend a very great deal of my time, energy, focus, and thought constantly analyzing and deconstructing the human mind, mainly my own. Analyzing the minds of others is a secondary goal which I admit inadvertently comes into play as a result of my sheer desire to understand my own. It’s a simple truth I’ve learned over the years, and I accept it.

I am influenced by people, and people are influenced by me. To understand myself, I seek to understand others. To understand others, I seek to understand myself.

For the longest time since far back into my youth, I’ve been very busy perusing the inner workings of my mind, experiencing a combination of both genuine fascination and confusion. I didn’t realize this back then, but I do now. My journey into working as a therapist started a long time ago. My first and longest client was, is, and will always be myself. I’ve acted as my own therapist in order to continue surviving, to continue thriving. I had to. I’ve learned how to rescue myself from my chronic dips into utter despair, apathy, and low self-worth. I learned how to sit with anxiety, to let myself experience it, and how to dissect it to expose the very core. I learned how I best relate to and with people. I discovered how much I thrive off of experiencing and witnessing authentic human connection with others through the power of vulnerability. I learned the mind truly is an amazing tool which can influence and reshape our bodies, its reactions, and its habits through practice. Throughout life, I felt my mind was trained to be in therapy. Finally, I want to face my fears and pursue the opportunity to leverage and refine this part of me.

The brain is a vast complicated world of possibilities, answers, and mystery. My goal isn’t to tackle them all, not by any means. I’ll leave this for psychologists and neurologists to dig through in their continued research. My focus and fascination lies primarily towards a specific portion of our human traits. Emotions. Though I'm intrigued to understand scientifically how or why we feel the way we do, I feel more drawn to gaining a stronger understanding and foothold around how best to cope with them. I know it’s a lifelong journey, but it’s one I’m clearly already on with no end in sight.

Therapy requires going back to school. It’s a two year commitment in a graduate program with multiple routes to choose from depending on what one wants to focus on. A long time ago, I promised myself I wouldn’t go back to school unless it was absolutely required and necessary to do so. The only reason fitting this bill is the pursuit of a career I’m genuinely and profoundly passionate about. To this day, I haven’t found or felt anything else which matched the same level of passion, curiosity, intrigue, love, diligence, and priority. I’ve found the reason. It’s time to act.

I’ve been mulling this idea over and over for nearly a decade if not slightly more. I’ve experienced the urge coming from my core, pulling me from the inside out, dying to get my attention. Finally it has it. The idea of pursuing a higher education around the field of human emotions, mental illness, and disorder is both incredibly exciting and slightly terrifying at the same time. On one hand, what am I getting myself into? On the other, complete liberation.

I’ve been training myself since as far back as I can remember. It’s second nature to me. A part of me knows I’m ready. I am ready, and the truth is I always have been.

Life

Life may often times appear simpler than we make it out to be, but it ain’t that simple nor is it ever meant to be. Life is complicated, difficult, and gray. We best serve ourselves by accepting this notion.

Next time you’re feeling blue, hurt, anxious, angry, nervous, fearful, stressed, trapped, burned, burdened, or pushed to the very limits of your own sanity, remember this. Life is not meant to be a walk in the park. Life is sometimes a slow stroll, sometimes a steady jog, sometimes an all out sprint to the finish line, and all the time everything above.

It is Life.

Group Meditation Turned Single Interrogation

I recently dropped into a group meditation class in San Francisco. The place was located in the Mission district, and the class offered to me as a gift from a friend. I booked my reservation ahead of time. I walk in and on time. Guess what? I’m the only person signed up for this week’s session. At the top of the staircase entered a young woman who greeted me promptly. She was the woman leading these meditation sessions. She was also overly cheerful and overly anxious to meet me. I couldn’t even walk up the set of stairs before being barraged with a plethora of questions and surface-level greetings from her.

“You must be Dann. How are you? Did you find the place alright? Hi, I’m ____.”

There was a certain aura about her which exuded mixed messages. It was slightly on edge, uneasy, and anxiety-driven. She was a tad overly perky, as if trying to overcompensate or overcome her own inner discomfort she was feeling. I felt her slightly forceful energy, filling the space with a subtle need to prove herself. Maybe it was just me. Maybe it was just this week. Maybe this is how it just is. Regardless. Give me a minute. Seriously.

By the time I reached the top of the stairs, I quickly realized I’m the only one here. Noticing my reaction, she reactively started to explain how I was the only one registered for this week’s session. The exact thoughts rolling through my head at the moment was “great” with an obvious sarcastic tone. Thank you for letting me know ahead of time. She told me I could come back the following week. I thought about it, but I was already here. I committed myself to tonight. I left work early and literally chased after the shuttle bus down in Mountain View in order to make it up here on time. After exiting the shuttle in SF, I walked at a brisk pace and hurried along the sidewalks. I arrived perfectly on time. Did I really want to come back and do this all over again the following week? I committed myself for this particular session. No, I can’t reschedule.

For the next 20 mins, I was getting hit with question after question after question. I kid you not. I was interrogated about my current feelings, goals, and aspirations in life. I was asked to describe my passion and how I was getting there. I’m not one to be shy about this information, but lately, I just haven’t been in the mood. Even still, I was completely bewildered by this woman’s tenacity, persistence, and lack of awareness. Anybody with the tiniest hint of intuition could have intuited my low energy, noticed the body language, and detected the disheveled tone of my voice. Bottom line is, I am fucking tired. Here she is, firing off questions after questions. She started at the surface level.  "How are you feeling? How are things? Where do you work? What do you do at work?"  Then she started diving deeper into more energy-consuming questions as followups. Looking back in retrospect, it probably would have been a better idea to have postponed the session till the following week.

What was I thinking?

I did not sign up for a therapy session! I have my own therapist, and you ain't him. I came here to meditate in a collaborative space with other people, with a shared energy. Instead I have only you. I was hoping for a beautiful experience regardless, connecting one to one instead of one to many, and appreciating the unique dynamic presented here. Instead, here she is, continuously putting me on the spot to socialize, to open up, to answer her questions. I’m convinced it was her own anxiety primarily driving this. Convinced. I tried to blame ignorance, but she wasn’t ignorant. She was well-aware, and it made the situation all the more frustrating. She was aware of my mental state and energy. She said to me multiple times, “Sorry I know I’m asking you lots of questions, and I know you came here to meditate and not be interrogated. [smile] Feel free to not answer them.”, which was quickly followed by “So what is your life passion?” Seriously? What the f__k. Her anxiety continued driving her actions while she continued firing off more questions even after apologizing for it. She would not stop. She could not stop.

Believe it or not, we eventually did meditate for 15 minutes.  We sat there afterwards, and she proceeded to ask me how I felt. Again with the questions. I was brutally honest. I told her what I felt, which by majority was tiredness and sheer mental exhaustion. My brain literally wanted to simply shut off. We debated on several topics such as medicine and about her practice as a “healer”, which I admit to be incredibly wary and skeptic of. Self-proclaimed healers can go hug a tree for all I care, but you won’t ever get me to. We exchanged views on mental health, the state of well-being, and the intricate power of one’s mind. She elaborated about her belief in the mind knowing no difference between fact or fiction. For example, if you imagined yourself running through a field of lush green grass or throwing the last game-winning pitch in the world series, your mind will receive the same intensity and level of stimulation as if it really was running or winning the world series. She proceeded onto her belief in being able to recover from any mental illness, even genetic diseases like schizophrenia and psychosis, by sheer mental power and willpower. She takes the quote, “it’s all in your head”, to a whole new level believing sheer will can set you free. I challenged her on these notions, mainly to support my own belief in psychotherapy and mental illness. Perhaps in some cases, these things appear to go away or lessen in severity over time, but is it really because they thought of happy sunrises and loving thoughts all day? A little bullshit goes a long way. I subtly called her out on it in my own way.

We have differing views. I can respect and leave it at that.

What's Going On? Not Much In Your Eyes

You hear it all the time at work, on the street, at home, at the local convenience store. “What’s going on?”, asks the clerk, the friend, the co-worker, the barista, the bus driver, the guy folding clothes at H&M, the stranger you accidentally glanced and linked eyes with momentarily. Well, I’m just a little tired of hearing it lately. I tried deconstructing the meaning behind the commonly used idiom to greet and acknowledge people, and seriously. What is going on?

Call it my rebellion. Call it my quest for truth. Call it my incessant need to be authentic and always mean what I say. Call it however you see it. I’m not perfect, and sometimes I’m just not in the mood to offer a predefined monotone automatic quick response to the question.

“Not much, you?”
“You know, the usual.”
“Eh, life.”
“Went to X bar and saw X.”
“Did this and did that.”

I’ve been feeling more irritable lately. There probably are a variety of reasons why, not all which I claim to fully understand. Lack of sleep is one large factor. There’s also stress, tiredness, and mental exhaustion from emotional turmoil. Pressure from work is building. Otherwise, life is life right? No, not really, but now isn’t time or blog post to discuss it. Point is, being asked this question or any other surface-level passing greeting (whats up, how you doin, how’s it goin) has lately stirred up more bothersome annoyance than usual.

Let’s start with this notion. Sometimes I just don’t feel like socializing. Period. When in public, I feel pressure to respond to anyone who asks me a question. Needless to say, this pressure is my own, but I do believe everyone deserves a response. I don’t care if you’re Barack Obama or a homeless person on the street. Responding to someone who’s asking a question is a fundamental acknowledgment of their human existence and worth. Everyone is worthy of a response, even if it’s a negative one. There are moments where I just don’t feel like being around anyone, and then there are situations where I have no choice but to be. The questions then come in, and I don’t always understand the point. Some interactions seem rather unnecessary. It’s a judgment on my part, but it irks me. After all, what is it really for? Rather, who is it really for? I say it’s more for them than for me. It’s so they can feel social, so they can satisfy their own personal needs to start conversation with anyone who walks down the street. Another time, another place. Someday I’ll again be in the mood to be chatty and exchange small talk, entertaining the questionnaire. For now though, please find and interrogate someone else to make yourself feel better.

These days, I generally have less things to say or rather less social activities to report I’ve been doing. When I was single, I did a lot to occupy my time. I engaged in a healthy mix of external activities. I engaged in yoga, climbing, happy hours, meditation classes, volunteering, one-to-one dinners, movies, clubs, bars, concerts. These activities seemed generally more agreeable or appropriate to respond with based on outside perspective. It felt more widely accepted as a productive way to spend time. It appeared I was living life to the fullest, embracing it, seizing the day. Well, my priorities have shifted. I’m no longer single, and I occupy my time very differently now. I spend much more time with myself, with my lover, and with loved ones. I meet less people. I do less social things. I don’t go out every weekend anymore. I drink less. I dance less. I simply do less.

Perhaps it looks or sounds like I’m not doing as much. The reality though is I’m always doing a lot. I’m always stretching myself thin, trying to do more, trying to be more, trying to ___ more. Am I really doing less, or am I simply doing more in the areas less visible or noted objectively by others? My point is, who says we’re doing enough? Is it our friends, our parents, our siblings, our coworkers, our boss, our local community, strangers in the neighborhood, Facebook news feeds, religious figures? Or, is it simply ourselves? I find myself constantly asking the self-imposed question, who am I trying to please? Who I am I trying to be good enough for? If I answer internally anyone other than myself, I immediately self-correct and realign my thoughts. The only person I ever want to be good enough for is myself.

What’s going on? I don’t climb as regularly. I don’t do yoga every week. I don’t volunteer anywhere. I don’t meet up with people as frequently. I don’t see as many shows, concerts, and movies. I don’t visit the local bars and clubs anymore.

What’s going on? I am constantly fighting and working hard to resolve issues in my relationship. I am constantly thinking about my future. I am taking proactive steps to realign my life towards the direction I want to go. I am improving my relationship with my brother, how better to relate, and how better to support and cope with his illness. I am undergoing therapy on a weekly basis, working diligently, and taking notes to uncover deeper truths about myself. I am writing, journaling, and now blogging more. I am hanging out with myself, giving myself the space to be creative, to rest, to relax in the moment, and to be free. I am learning to love myself more.

I’m doing more in the areas less visible, sometimes less appreciated, sometimes less understood, and sometimes less accepted by the demanding external world. It’s easy to connect with someone who does A, B, and Z every week and weekend. It’s not as easy to connect with someone who does C, D, and X on their own private time, alone. Subject matters focused around internal emotions, self-love, and self-acceptance tend less to be spoken of, less discussed, and less related to in casual settings. It doesn’t have to be this way, but it is at the moment, and I’ll object to it every time. Next time someone asks me what’s going on, I’m going to tell them. Depending on whether they want to hear it or not, I’ll probably feel rejected and judged slightly, at which point I’ll stop. The point is, I’ll always keep trying.

If you’ve been spending your time lately recuperating from work, finding your cave time, working out marital or relationship conflicts, grieving a loss of a loved one, working on personal growth issues, sleeping/staying in to replenish your soul, or simply taking private moments to yourself without jumping at each social opportunity which gets thrown your way, go you. I support you. I hear you. I respect you. I acknowledge your undeniable strength to stand up for yourself, to yourself, and with yourself against the world.

Be who you are. Do what you need. Always.

Jewelry Making 101

At the end of last year, I purchased an introductory class to making jewelry for Tricia on her birthday.  She’s mentioned it in the past.  She's even declared it as one of her dreams to do.  I thought it'd make a great gift.  I booked months in advance knowing how arts and craft events get booked so quickly especially here in the bay.  As part of her secondary gift, I purchased myself a class ticket to accompany her so I be in the moment and witness her live out a life-long dream.  Little did I know just how much I would fall in love with the art myself.

A random moment of reflection enters.  It never ceases to surprise me how good it feels to have something booked in advance ahead of time.  The longer you have to wait, the longer the excitement, anticipation, and ultimately pleasure gets accrued.  A long time ago, I remembered hearing a friend speak very vividly.  I heard him broach the subject of something potentially crude and crass at the surface level, yet inevitably wise and applicable to all aspects of life.  “If you’re gettin’ down with a girl and you’re about to blow, why wouldn’t you pull back, stop, and wait?”, stated bluntly without any shame, doubt, or uncertainty.  The meaning behind it is simple.  The point was to say, if something feels so incredibly good, don’t let it end so quickly.  We’d be doing ourselves an incredible disservice otherwise.  Instead, prolong it.  Enjoy the ride.  Don’t alleviate the discomfort so quickly to relieve the pressure.  Know the difference between good discomfort versus bad.  The pleasure at final destination is never as good or long-lasting as the moments building up to the apex.  This would prove to be another important life lesson told through the unexpected.  It’s a lesson I still hold to this day deep within me.  The journey is the destination.

The Introduction to Jewelry & Metals class took place this past weekend.  Tricia and I committed total 16 hours over the span of two days inside a warehouse, which felt like a second home for Burners.  The place called The Crucible is located just over the bridge in West Oakland.  It’ll go without saying, but this place is beyond amazing.  Woodworking, blacksmithing, moldmaking, enameling, glassblowing, ceramics, and the list goes on.  They even have a bike shop offering classes build your own bicycle from scratch.  Bike frame, wheels, spokes, chain, seat post, the whole nine yards.  Imagine riding around town.  Someone specs out your ride and asks you where you purchased it.  You respond back, telling them you built the beautiful thing with your bare hands from scratch.  Priceless.

Being inside The Crucible for 8 hours is like being outdoors for 8 hours.  The entrance way is through a giant warehouse-sized garage door, always left open to the public and large enough probably to lug 30 ft steel monster sculptures to and from the place.  There hardly exists anything equivalent to a standard door entrance other than to various workshops littered within the place.  Even still, those doors were always left open.  Point is, if it’s cold outside, then it’s cold inside.  It was really cold and brisk when we went.  It was really cold and brisk inside for 8 hours.

There was a choice to elect a class meeting up once a week for 3 hours for over a month versus a weekend intensive course meeting for 8 hours on both Saturday and Sunday.  Without a doubt, I chose the latter knowing how we both loving charging forward to new adventures with full-force.

Saturday, we had our heads pumped with basic fundamentals.  This included techniques like annealing, sawing, texturizing, filing, and my personal favorite, soldering.  We practiced creating a large variety of textures onto metals using a wide assortment of hammers and punchers.  We created fishnet and snakeskin textures onto copper using a rolling mill.  We learned how to solder butt joints, t-joints, and sweat joints.  We learned about flux and how it protects our metals when heating it up using a torch.  We learned how to detect metal as being properly annealed and how to clean the metal off with an acid bath immediately afterward.  It’s quite a lot to take in on one day, and I was completely wiped out by the end.  To be honest, I was slightly discomforted by the thought of coming back the next day for yet another grueling 8 hours.

Sunday rolled in.  Everyone had a task the night before to come in with a few designs for rings.  The idea was to spend all of Sunday to make them.  Tricia and I arrive late.  We had no designs.  We just had ourselves.  I remember my brain feeling fried.  I remember feeling tired, drained, and weak.  I haven’t slept much the previous week or nights leading up to the class.  I was feeling low and filled with an empty feeling.  Work motivation was up, but I was starting to feel the onslaught of apathy creeping in.  I was fighting my depression once again and was hard on myself for not being more excited about the opportunity at hand.

I sat down.  I isolated into myself and my thoughts.  Designs started popping up out of what seemed like nowhere.  I’d see a line there, a few holes there, a pattern there, words scribed across the middle.  I took a look at some sample rings to help brainstorm.  I saw a silver ring with a piece of brass and copper soldered onto it.  I relished in the idea of juxtaposing small pieces of copper against the silver band.  I thought about uniformity.  I thought about order.  I thought about patterns.  In the past, my designs frequently revolved around lines of symmetry and intricate repeating patterns.  I was conjuring up patterns in my head in addition to subtle but hidden words proving to be particularly special to me and potentially others.  I started thikning about the words perfect and imperfection.  I suppose it’s how I felt most in the moment.

We each received a sliver of silver and had the option of making two rings out of it instead of one.  I was determined to do just that.  I sawed the silver piece in half, then measured and sawed two thirds off the width.  The wider piece was my primary focus while the skinny piece served as my backup and stretch goal.  My motivation earlier was simply one ring, but I was now motivated to make something really beautiful and something which would carry lots of sentimental value.  I went from crafting a plain blank piece of silver to one with two lines bordering up the edges.  Between the lines, I cut out and soldered four small circular pieces of copper, all equidistant from each other.  I punched a pattern of small holes surrounding the copper simply because it just felt right.  After this, I couldn’t help but notice the seemingly perfect blank slate left for me to scribe two words along the ring, oriented in opposite directions.  There were the four slots between each copper piece and then the four copper pieces themselves.  Two words popped into my head almost immediately as if they were part of my plan all along.  They were the two most prominent emotions in my current and past life always dominating my very core.

LOVE - PAIN

There is no love without pain.  They go hand-in-hand.  The greater you love someone, the greater the pain you experience through it.

I fit this for the ring finger of my right hand.  Upon closer inspection of my ring, I’m tempted to draw an even grander conclusion from the design.  This isn’t the first time I designed something for myself only to realize much later on an even greater significance and meaning drawn from it.  The letters spelling the word LOVE is surrounded by lots of space.  The space is a metaphor for freedom.  It provides space to move around in, to be open, to be accepting, to be seen and free.  It rests directly on the silver band.  It rests at the core.  On the other hand, the letters spelling PAIN are trapped within the confines of a tiny copper piece.  The copper piece represents a prison.  It’s a holding cell accompanied by four punch holes carefully placed at each corner.  The holes are like watch towers keeping guard, making sure the prisoner, pain, doesn’t escape.

In life, I find this to be just as true.  We prison our pain.  We often hold onto it more often longer than necessary.  Some people choose to hold onto it forever.  For some, there is pain which will never, ever go away.  Love on the other hand shifts in, out, and around freely.  It comes and goes swiftly like the wind.  It dances around.  It sings.  It moves.  It frees.  Love is freeing.

The skinny ring was a pet project and was one I told myself I cared less about.  Looking back in hindsight though, I treated it with just as much care as I did the other.  If there’s another thing to learn through this experience, it’s knowing it’d be almost impossible for me to half-ass any task.  Even when I told myself the skinny ring didn’t matter, it truthfully still did.  It usually does.  I textured the metal by hand using a small wedge hammer, littering the small piece of silver with textures moving in every direction.  I stamped the letters i-m-p-ǝ-r-f-ǝ-ɔ-t along the band, making sure to flip a few letters upside down to highlight its imperfection.  Each letter was appropriately padded with an even amount of space on each side while its vertical orientation was all mixed.  I wanted this ring to be imperfect, even though I had to strive for perfection while making it.  I wanted this ring to remind me I am imperfect, to continue being imperfect, and to continue striving for imperfection.

I cannot describe the level of joy I have in my heart to be wearing rings I actually crafted.  Everything from the thickness gauge, to the design, to the words, to the meaning.  It’s all my own, and there isn’t a single piece of jewelry at the moment which can mean more to me.

Thank you Tricia.

Perfecting Imperfection

It's true what they say.  You are your own worst critic.  Tell me about it.  I took this saying to the extreme, and since early childhood, I've constantly bombarded myself with waves and waves of self-imposed judgment and proposed correction.  I constantly held myself accountable up to the highest bar ever known to man (and woman).  This bar was called perfection.

Growing up and having no choice but to spend almost 30 years with myself, it'd be a shame if I didn't have at least a little bit of self-awareness.  Naturally, my self-awareness did grow and expand as the years went by, but more recently I've genuinely began fuller realization of my true self including my true potentials and pitfalls as well.  I began working on myself and analyzing my very heart, mind, and soul at a fairly young age during middle school.  Since then, I've logged an infinite number of hours to recognize a fundamental truth which has stuck with me since as far back as I can remember.  I am really, really hard on myself.

I sort of do and don't remember the first time I ever came to experience the word "perfect", what it means and why it exists.  Thinking about it now, I'm almost positive the first time I ever conceived the idea of perfection was within the church growing up as a christian.  The word was used everywhere to represent the man upstairs and his beloved son.  It was used in hymnals, praise songs, sermons.  Apparently the man whom I share a birthday with was labeled as the perfect man.  Perfection in this context meant a man who bore no sin.  Not one, not a single one.  How undeserving we all must be, and how lucky we all are to be alive because the perfect man rescued us all from our own sins by dying a painful death.  If it sounds like the perfect plot to plant a seed of guilt in our minds, then you're hearing right.  I remember constantly comparing myself to him, asking the common question.  WWJD?  I remember entertaining the thought of myself being a resurrection of him and imagining what it'd be like to be him.  I remember trying hard, really hard.  I tried to be "perfect" and failed miserably.

I am a strong perfectionist.  Hours and hours of self-analysis led to lots of realizations and re-realizations about my perfectionism.  Where does it come from?  Why is it there?  Why can't I ever change it despite my greatest and grandest efforts to do so?  Is it good, or is it bad?  Does it mean I'm strong, or am I weak?  Over the years and recent events, I've come to one undeniable conclusion and truth.  Perfectionism is bad.  Let me clarify.  Perfectionism is bad, for me.

Based on the definition given by the pre-installed Dictionary app on all Macs, perfectionism is defined as the refusal to accept any standard short of perfection.  What a terrible display of using the root word as part of the definition, right?  Let's go one level deeper.  Perfection then, is defined as the condition, state, or quality of being free or as free as possible from all flaws or defects.

I hit a giant milestone near the end of last year and finally put in some really genuine effort to find a therapist.  I've thought and talked about finding one for years until one fateful day, I made a firm and adamant decision to find one.  I was filled with sheer determination and will alone, and failure was not an option.  After a dozen calls to a dozen therapists and session visits to half of them, I finally found my therapist and have been seeing him weekly since.  A common theme consistently bubbling up during my sessions is perfectionism, how deeply rooted it lays within my mind, and how it touches just about every aspect of my life.  I have a pattern of thought which he commonly refers to as black and white thinking.  For perfectionists such as myself, we're inevitably training our minds to believe and think in dyads.  It's either one or the other, with no in between.  For any given situation, we perceive two interpretations.  When engaged in conversation and hearing something ambiguous, we interpret it in two opposing ideas.  She loves me always, or she doesn't love me at all.  I trust her completely, or I don't trust her at all.  I'm a good person, or I'm just weak.  If she cheats on me, she never loved me.  If he rejects me, I'm not good or deserving enough to get it.  These are typical scenarios which have inevitably at one point or another ran its course through my own head.

Black and white thinking does me no good and is a very destructive way to perceive the gray world I live in.  My mind splinters off and interprets high-risk situations with as little as two options when in reality, I know there are infinitely more.  Not so surprisingly, this style of thinking only kicks in whenever the situation pulls in my own sense of self-worth into the picture.  It's like a thick giant fog rolling in, and suddenly you don't know which way is up or down, left or right.  I can assess other peoples' situations very objectively, compassionately, and empathically.  I'm quite good at it, but when it comes to giving myself the same amount of grace and compassion, I simply don't.  It's like a bad habit, which despite everything I know about self-worth, acceptance, deservingness, and compassion, I fail time and time again to break the spell.  It's equivalent to being unable to kick the nicotine habit while knowing crystal clear without a single doubt, it is killing me.  I'm my own worst critic, and I'm always fighting to break down and away from this destructive habit.

In the old cartoon show, GI Joe, the motto always was "Knowing is half the battle."  Well, thank you very much Mary Jane, but shit, what's the other half?  It's like telling someone a pot of gold exists somewhere without leaving them a single clue.  It's true though.  Knowledge does help, and there's no way you can work to obtain something if you don't even know it exists.  As for the other half, I'm learning and accepting that some things are just impossible to do through sheer will alone.  Will power regardless of how much knowledge I possess is just not enough to change.  The answer?  Practice.  It takes practice, repetition, and consistency to build new habits over the old.  You want to change something, change the way you perceive situations, move past old thinking patterns, and get into the new?  Then practice is your answer.

The human mind is incredibly complex as is the human spirit.  How can anyone believe we can classify something so complex as the human mind into just two motives?  Well I obviously can, but I know it's a false perception and simply not true.  I know we're all truly unique and come in all different shapes and sizes.  I know I'm really hard on myself more than I am on others.  I know I hold high and unrealistic expectations of myself, often ending in disappointment within myself.  I know I try to be perfect while knowing perfection doesn't exist.  I know.

I wanted to be perfect when I was young, and I tried to be perfect since.  It's a mental fixation, similar to OCD, where I can't help but want everything I do, say, produce, create, etc be the very best, be perfect.  Well, I'll say it loud and clear.  I'm done trying to be perfect.  I'm done trying to be in control.  Practice makes perfect?  I don't think so.  Practice makes imperfect.  I'm practicing to be imperfect.  I'm ready to wake up every day, chant mantras in my head if I have to, and practice getting my mind to let go, to ultimately accept my imperfect nature.  I will be late, most of the time.  I will sometimes retract and be unreachable.  I will have a difficult time keeping in touch with people.  I will respond to emails from three to six months ago because of procrastination.  I will judge myself harshly and hold myself to high expectations.  This is me.  I'm not perfect.  I acknowledge I want to be, and I acknowledge I never will be.  I am just me.

Anger Leads To Growth

I grew up with a lot of anger within me starting from an early age.  I can hardly remember how young I was the very first time I simply "lost it".  Thought it wasn't only me.  In therapy, I'm learning how significant genetics can influence and play a big role in establishing our emotional blueprints.  Maybe it seems obvious when you put them in a sentence together like that, but it wasn't to me.

Anger, depression, compulsiveness, perfectionism all run in my family amongst other emotions.  The walls inside my old home in Bethpage were riddled with bumpy plaster covering up all the gaping holes and dents made by our fists.  Our knuckles are permanently swollen and discolored from the constant abuse.  Jason held the top position on the leader board while I followed closely behind in second place.  Both of us have been suspended from school for violent behavior in classrooms, around students, and other faculty members.  Doors were slammed, desks were thrown, lockers were punched, teachers were sworn off.  He's got more interesting stories than I do, but I had my fair share of violent outbursts.  I didn't think I was doing anything wrong.  What do you think?

I've had many years since then to dissect my anger and think about where it comes from, why it's so explosive, and what I can potentially do about it.  While I've significantly mitigated my explosive temper over the years, I'll admit to undergoing only a handful of relapses since, almost always within the context of a romantic relationship.  The other place was at home with my mom.  Just recently, I've been relapsing again with some very serious explosive anger.  The intensity would be so strong, it'd overcome my entire mind, body, and heart.  I became completely overtaken, powerless, and possessed by the intense anger coursing through every vein.  I became verbally and physically violent, unleashing the excess anger with my fists against walls and marble countertops to my dismay.  Not even physical pain from the throbbing contusion in my hand was enough to distract my anger.  There was just so much of it with nowhere to go but out.

The last time I can remember losing myself to anger like this was just over five years ago.  Does this mean I've regressed?  If this was the first, second, or third time it's happened, maybe I'd think so.  Knowing this has been a chronic issue throughout my life, I know better.

My therapist recently told me I might be chronically depressed.  In fact, he simply stated, "You are depressed."  There wasn't a single doubt in his voice as he followed it up with, "I think you may be chronically depressed."  Depression can intensify anger by altering both my perception of experiences and my own emotions to seem worse than they actually are.  Depression can result by believing there are a lack of options in any given situation.  Many times, it feels like there are no options.  Black and white thinking contributes to this.  It's either right or wrong, either my way or your way.  I am a perfectionist, and I have gone in and out of depression my whole life.  Here's one clue behind my anger.

Being born into a Christian family, growing up in a church, and being faced with some very adult bullshit was great at cultivating a life constantly immersed in guilt.  I felt guilty for many things.  I felt guilty for not praying before a meal, for not reading the bible, for wanting to skip out on church, for not feeling devoted enough to my religion, for not crying at retreats, for not raising my hands and sobbing like the person next to me, for not wanting to clap my hands and sing, for not being strong enough to approach the alter asking for forgiveness, for not honoring my parents, for masturbating, for having sex before marriage, for having sexual thoughts, for feeling really happy, for feeling really sad.  The list goes on.  I never had anyone tell me it was okay to be human, to be imperfect, to simply be.  Instead, guilt was tactically used against me to manipulate my mind into believing I had to do things to be a good person, to go to heaven.  I've had quite a few experiences during my religious days from intense retreats and revivals, to demonic and spiritual possessions, to exorcisms, to people speaking in tongue.  It was all very confusing looking back in retrospect.

Overall, I felt a lot of guilt.  Subsequently, I also felt an incredible amount of shame.  Shame didn't help me speak the truth or speak at all.  Back then, I was too young and perhaps weak to know how to harness the power of shame.  I didn't know how to empower myself through shame with vulnerability.  I was a terrible communicator and expresser of emotions back in the day.  I was terrible at it because I didn't know how.  I never practiced.  I was always too ashamed to express my true feelings, my doubts, my questions.  I lacked confidence and self-esteem.  I didn't feel deserving of being listened to.  I didn't feel like I had anything useful or worthwhile to say.  I didn't feel I'd make any sense at all.  I didn't feel anyone cared.  I didn't believe I was strong.  I didn't speak.

Over the years, I've cultivated a personality trait where I kept things inside myself.  I bottled things up and convinced myself the bottle will never fill up.  I trained myself to hold my shit in, sometimes literally, and to be strong by sparing others the burden.  It was perhaps the only way I could feel strong.

Of course, my bottle isn't infinite, and my bottle does fill up.  Eventually, the bottle shatters, and my anger comes out.  When it does, there's different degrees of anger I experience.  Much like hurricanes, there are various categories of intensity.  Similarly, it's downright scary when it happens.  When a CAT 5 storm hits, I'm frightened for my myself, by myself.  When my mind blows, the whole world changes color.  A different pair of lens falls over my eyes, and the world looks like an altered version of hell, if there ever was one.

This past Sunday on the second day of 2011, my bottle broke.  My mind blew.  This time was different.  This time, it broke completely with nothing to replace it.  There weren't any bottles left and until I could find a new bottle to replace it with, my anger was completely exposed, out in the wild, gusting, swinging wildly, madly, lashing out on everything it can find to release itself, from itself.  It couldn't take the work of just one person to calm the storm, to dissipate the anger.  This time was different.  I needed more.  It took my lover, my friends, my family, my coworkers, my acquaintances, myself, and most importantly, time.

Asking for help can be humbling.  It is also incredibly liberating.  Having another set of eyes, ears, and shoulders bear witness to my anger, hear the frustration, and feel the gusty winds blowing is truly liberating.  Asking for help is empowering more than anything else.  One can never feel loved if one never grants themselves the opportunity to be loved.  I granted myself the opportunity to receive love and support from those around me.  I got it.  I've relearned this very important lesson yet again, and I am truly grateful.  Truly grateful.

The Black Swan

When I watch a movie with substance, it takes at least a full day to process not just how I feel about it, but what I think about it.  I can take almost any situation, any story, parable, movie, book, you name it, and find meaning from it.  I can find a way to apply it to my own life, to make it significant, to make it *meaningful*.  It's how I transform another person's piece of art into my own.  There was no difference with the Black Swan.  I was locked, engaged, and completely immersed in Nina's character.  I was in her head.  I felt her every emotion.  For 108 minutes, I was her.  I sometimes think of empathy as one's ability to leave their own minds and be completely immersed in another's, feeling every emotional heartbeat, feeling every push, every pull, and every drop of emotion.  I empathized for Nina.

Walking out of the movie, all I had then were my feelings.  There was no thought yet applied.  It's like I said.  I need at least a day for my brain to process and interpret my feelings.  What did I feel?  I liked it.  I identified with it.  There were moments where I saw more than mere glimpses of myself up on the big screen.  Though I didn't know yet to what degree, and I didn't know how to explain it.  Not yet.

The first question in my head was this.  What is the black swan?

There were logical and scientific answers coming to mind throughout the movie.  Things like schizophrenia, paranoia, and psychosis were all real explanations of what Nina was experiencing.  However, it's a movie.  It isn't real.  It isn't based on true events or an actual person.  This was a story where metaphors and symbolism take precedent.  It's obvious she's delusional and psychotic.  What's not so obvious is what lies beneath it.  What does it all mean?

There is the phrase, where there's a heaven there is a hell.  Where there is darkness, there is light.  Where there is man, there is woman.  Black or white.  This world of dyads we live in is built off of this idea of polarity.  Though just like there is a north and south pole on the earth, there also exists everything in between.  This movie touched upon the very extreme polarity between the two opposing sides within every human being.  I'm referring to our minds versus our souls.

There is a black swan within me, within all of us. It's what takes us to the very edge of insanity.  In fact, it is our insanity.  It's pure feeling absent of any bit of thought or rationale.  It's the intense fire of emotion, blasting through every vein in our body when we're pushed to our limits and our blood boils beneath the skin with anger.  It can change our every perception of the outside world.  Our vision, our touch, our hearing, our sense of smell and taste can all transform at the blink of an emotion.  The girl we once trusted and saw as the most beautiful woman in the world can suddenly become a demon with a cruel face you no longer recognize wanting to take something from you.  The fresh air we breathe can suddenly thicken and feel like an invisible suffocating cloud.  The sounds of a song we once used to comfort us can suddenly pound against the insides of our heads like broken bells.  A once delicious sample of food can taste like cardboard, bland, stale, and undesirable.

When the black swan fully reveals itself, we no longer have control, no more thought, no more logic. We become all emotion, driven by one and only one thing.  Our soul.  Our soul becomes unbounded, freed, and relinquished from all thought and reason.  It's pure emotion, feeling, and instinct.  It's our most inner, most true, and deepest core of who we uncontrollably are as unique individuals.  It's the root and birthplace of our entire sense of existence.  The human soul.

Come to think, this isn't a new theme.  I've seen various versions of the black swan before.  Chances are, so have you.  Smeagol and his alter ego from Lord of the Rings.  Jean Grey and Phoenix from X-Men.  Deprive, resist, and attempt to control your own soul long enough, it'll find its way out, and don't expect it to come out peacefully.  Kicking and screaming would be an understatement.

There is a black swan hidden deep within all of us, and many may never discover it nor will many actually allow it to be exposed.  To become fully possessed and overcome by our black swan would result in death.  I get it now.  Living a life driven only by the intensity of our emotions and nothing else cannot sustain.  It will destroy us and everything around us.  It is not meant to ever be fully unleashed onto the world.

Our souls are the black swans constantly fighting, poking, clawing, scratching, biting its way out of our bodies.  Our minds are the white swans acting as prison guards working constantly to keep our emotions in check with logic, reason, and rationale.  While our soul is constantly fighting to claw its way out, our mind does what it needs to stop it and prevent it from taking over.  It covers up the scars and gaping holes left by the black swan made in its attempt to relinquish itself from our bodies. Our white swan pushes back, fights back, and uses every tactic it knows to prevent the black swan from getting out. It wants to protect us. It tries to protect us.

Protection from what?  What happens when there is too much protection?

There exists an illusion of safety, an illusion of perfection, and the illusion of stability. Our minds are always fearing the loss of control and too often tries to prevent this by applying too much control.  Our mind knows the raw destructive power the black swan possesses.  Our mind fears what will happen if it gets out, if we start to act based on pure emotion rather than logic.  Our mind tries to protect us, and it also tries to be perfect.  Though in doing so, our mind begins trapping our very own soul behind prison walls.  If the mind never lets go and imprisons our soul even deeper, the soul begins to fight back, harder and harder. Its strength grows. Its lust for survival increases. Its desire to be freed from the prison walls steadily rises. It scratches harder, bites deeper, and screams louder. Depriving our soul empowers the soul, and it fights back.  No matter how strong or resilient our minds are, it will lose the fight. Our souls are infinite. It can expand, fly, dive, and grow to a million times the size of our bodies. Our souls are limitless.  Our minds on the other hand are not and are limited.

What are the prison walls we trap our souls behind? These prison walls are created by our own mind. The walls are put up in attempt to shape our black swans to be what they are never going to be. Always perfect. Always nice. Always loving. Always loyal. Always ____.  Fill in the blanks. The majority of us start our lives being really hard on ourselves, thinking we can shape and mold ourselves into whatever we want ourselves to be. We start out thinking that through sheer will alone, we can somehow change the shape and color of our black swan, of our tender soul. Truth is the more we try, the more walls we put up to prevent the black swan from moving in a direction we don't want it to. We put up walls, more walls, and more walls until all walls have closed in together so closely, it begins to confine our soul into a prison. Trapped and pushed into confinement, our soul begins to flutter its wings. It wants out, and there is nothing, not our minds, not our bodies, not anyone that's going to stop it. If you try, you'll be left defeated, barren, burnt, depleted, and maybe even dead.

The black swan is a part of us all. If we fight it, we are fighting ourselves. If we neglect its existence, trap it, and try imprisoning it behind a fictitious layer of control, it will destroy us. It will destroy all of us. Nurture your souls. Feed it. Give it the attention it deserves. If angry, be angry. If sad, be sad. If excited, be excited. The constant strive to always be perfect, to always be strong, to always be loving, to always be loyal, to always be ... will destroy us all.

Instead of trying to be perfect, I want to master the art of being imperfect. It's the only way my mind and soul, my white and black swans, can unite and exist harmoniously in life.  Otherwise, I may periodically continue to feel the black swan itching to get out of me, reminding me to nurture it, drawing my attention to be released.  Eventually, it'll explode out of my body hurting myself and others around me.

Let's hope it never gets back down to that.  Though it happened again recently, I'm hoping this time will be different.