Indolence

Those of you who read this through RSS or email may not have seen the handful of quotations spackled on the right-hand column of my blog. As long as I’ve been blogging (over 20 years now) my blogs have had a random assortment of quotations that are somehow meaningful to me.

One of the most recent is this quote from a Washington Irving story. The description is meant as an insult. It is a son describing the father he doesn’t want to be.

“He was an indolent, good-natured man, who took the world as it went, and had a kind of laughing philosophy, that parried all rubs and mishaps, and served him in the place of wisdom.” — Washington Irving

When I read that I felt seen (by Washington Irving!). I’m indolent. I’m good-natured. Democritus, my favorite philosopher by virtue of being from Abdera, is remembered as the laughing philosopher, which means he must have had a kind of laughing philosophy, something to which I also aspire. And I often crack jokes in place of wisdom I lack.

I self-deprecate about my indolence, laziness I often call it, but I also carry a lot of guilt about it. If I were only more industrious, if I were only more dedicated, more determined, more of a go-getter, my life would be so different. I feel guilty for letting down Louise Gluck and frittering away my “one wild and precious life.”

I won’t say it doesn’t still make me feel a certain kind of way, but I can say my self-compassion about such things is much greater than it used to be.

So, tonight, instead of diligently working on my craft, or adding words to my many projects, I’ll be watching another episode of Doom Patrol. I love that show. What really made me swoon was the introduction of a sentient genderqueer street named Danny. That’s the kind of sweetweird that makes my heart sing.

Oh yeah, and I’m pretty sure Brent Best wrote this song about me.

I’m a lazy guy
I’m amazed at the way some people try and try and try
To erect and then perfect some kind of proof that they’re alive before they die
Well not me, ’cause I’m a lazy guy

And I’m amazed at the way some people holler, fuss and run ’round
Like some chicken with their head cut off or a bullet from a gun
They should all sit back, relax and maybe try and have some fun
I’d help them try, but I’m a lazy guy
And I must defer a life of labor to someone who needs it more
I’d much prefer to be their neighbor, just the guy who lives next door
Sit out on the porch with my crap guitar and my mason jar of tea, and you know why
‘Cause I’m a lazy guy

I’m a lazy guy
I’m amazed at the way some people try and try and try
To erect and then perfect some kind of proof that they’re alive before they die
Well not me, ’cause I’m a lazy guy

And I’m amazed at the way you count my failings like some clerk
Like you’re the saint in this relationhip and me I’m just some jerk
‘Cause it’s love we got between us, and relationships take work so why don’t you try?
‘Cause I’m a lazy guy

I ‘m a lazy guy
I’m amazed at the way some people try and try and try
To erect and then perfect some kind of proof that they’re alive before they die
Well not me, ’cause I’m a lazy guy

Yeah I’m amazed at the way the days just slip on by so fast
Like ten thousand go-carts racing down the mountain of the past
If I had a bead on what I need to make the moment last I just might try
I just might try

Yeah I’m amazed at the way the days just keep on slipping by
And I got plans and dreams and hopeful schemes, enough to make you cry
I’m just waiting for that single perfect point in time to give ’em all a try
And I’m a lazy lazy guy

I’m a lazy guy

(100 Days of Blogging: Post 066 of 100)

What I Learned

I’ve had a week to reflect on my most important desire. What have I learned?

  1. I’ve learned that working on the same theme for a set number of days is fun. Although a week might be too long, but I wouldn’t be surprised to see theme weeks in the future.
  2. I’ve learned that writing the kind of short essays I enjoy writing take up more time than I’d like.
  3. I’ve learned that acting ‘as if’ is a valuable tool for critical introspection.
  4. I’ve learned that there probably isn’t an ‘authentic’ self. However, striving toward a life more closely aligned with one’s personal values is probably a path to living well.
  5. More likely than an authentic self is a collection of authentic selves.
  6. I’ve learned that inauthenticity is when you cannot, for reasons brought about by yourself or others, express yourself or behave according to your closely held values.
  7. I’ve remembered that knowing the meanings of words, and learning new words (and revisiting words I already thought I knew!), is important to me.
  8. And I’ve learned that the most important thing to remember is to remember. So much of what I read this last week is stuff I already knew but forgot to remember.

I have a spectrum of desires and their priority and meaningfulness is constantly shifting. I suppose if I had to lock in on one, my most important desire is to continue growing and learning, to keep striving for eudaimonic well-being.

(100 Days of Blogging: Post 065 of 100)

Building My Vocabulary

I’m nearing the end of my seven-day meditation on my most important desire, and this afternoon I had a lateral inspiration.

Initially, I considered writing about creativity and lack of time (as in ‘my most important desire is to have more time to engage my creative self’) but as I considered my behavior over the last few months it struck me that I’m kind of in the process of building my own personal vocabulary of emotional, spiritual, and psychological states.

Is my most important desire developing a glossary of my internal being? Maybe. Or something very close to that. Not my desire forever perhaps, but there’s evidence that expanding my emotional/psychological/spiritual vocabulary has been my most important desire for the last several months.

There’s a vocabulary-related behavior I’ve engaged in for as long as I’ve been writing, that I never really noticed until last year. I didn’t notice it because it’s so baked into my process, and so interwoven into the process as a whole, that it disappeared in the multitude of behaviors I cluster under the broad umbrella of ‘writing’.

At one point, just after I started researching fairies, I realized I was building a fairy vocabulary list, not too different than the vocabulary lists my 3rd grade teacher prompted me to create when researching a new topic. (Fairy, faery, fay, elf, animist, ontology, spirit, soul, etc.)

One reason I failed to notice this glossary-building exercise is because textbooks in high school and college conveniently came with vocabulary lists, so it was less important I create my own. I’ve also always been an inveterate dictionary user and note-taker, so I barely noticed when I engaged in that sort of behavior outside of school.

When I started my reading on fairies last year, I created a file for words I wanted to ensure I was using correctly, and it occurred to me that this might be something to share with the students. How many of them actively create a list of terms for themselves as they begin a research project?

Since last summer when I started this journey to reduce my work-related unhappiness I’ve been reading widely (and talking to a therapist). Since I’m sheepishly late to self-reflection about my inner emotional state, I’ve had to essentially start a new research project. And in that project I’ve had to define for myself — mindfulness, authenticity, real self, value, virtues, depression, sadness, anger, happiness, joy, peace, tranquility, calm, etc.

I’ve used the term ‘happiness’ a zillion times throughout my life, but only within the last six months have I held it up and analyzed it and tried to figure out what I meant when I used that word in relation to myself. I once thought of happiness as a state of high-emotional arousal (ohmigod I won the lottery! This is what happiness feels like!), but upon reflection that’s not really what I feel when I feel happy. My current definition of happiness is more along the lines of — those moments of respite when known bullshit has been taken care of and I’m blissfully unaware of what sort of bullshit lays around the next corner. In a real, non-trivial way for me, happiness is the state of being momentarily problem-free.

So, maybe my most important desire, right now, is to have the language to articulate my feelings and emotional needs, so I can learn more about them, and ask for help about something specific instead of something vague.

**

Speaking of time, here’s an exceprt from The People, Yes by Carl Sandburg I’ve posted several times in the past. (Such a painful, heartfelt lament.)

The people so often sleepy, weary, enigmatic,
is a vast huddle with many units saying:
    "I earn my living.
    I make enough to get by
    and it takes all my time.
    If I had more time
    I could do more for myself
    and maybe for others.
    I could read and study
    and talk things over
    and find out about things.
    It takes time.
    I wish I had the time."

(100 Days of Blogging: Post 064 of 100)

Autonomy

I’m in the midst of a seven day quest to determine my most important desire. I’ve considered what it means to be true to my ‘authentic’ self and what it it means to be inauthentic. Today’s exploration takes me into the realm of autonomy.

Here’s the definition I found most satisfying for ‘living authentially’: authenticity is experienced in the moments your expression and behavior are aligned with your closely held values.

This begs the question of what are values and how are they defined? For example, it seems like the values of a person raised in a family- or communal-oriented culture might have a different value system than someone raised in a fiercely individualistic culture. Predictably, the range of values shift significantly within the research.

Of the spectrum of values I hold, autonomy is at or near the top. For this post I’m using ‘free from coercion’ as the definition of autonomy.

Since I’m not particularly interested in living without house or home, or living a life of food precarity if I can avoid it, I choose to work. For a substantial number of people this equals autonomy. I have the freedom to choose between working for a wage and extreme poverty. Choice!

That’s always seemed like a spurious argument to me. What reasonable person is going to choose the hardship of a life without income (whether inherited or worked for)? When it comes to food/clothing/shelter, is it really reasonable to chose NOT to have those physiological needs met?

So, if I want the basic fundamentals of life, food/clothing/shelter, then I’m coerced into labor. My autonomy is restricted.

That’s just the way it is, kid. You can’t fight city hall. Suck it up and stop whinging. You have it better than a lot of other people even if you do have to work at a job that’s not perfect.

And there’s my dilemma. I like the creature comforts money can buy. I have a lovely home, retirement savings, disposable income, luxury I don’t want to give up (thanks in no small part to privilege and luck). But to gain that I have to trade a huge chunk of my daily autonomy. It’s possible I could find another job that feels less onerous and more rewarding, but I think that’s mostly the luck of the draw, and has more to do with who I work with than what kind of work I do. There are very few jobs for indolent dreamers whose greatest ambition is to hang out with friends and goof around.

With that said, perhaps autonomy isn’t, right now, my most important desire. I still have two more days for this exercise, so I’ll approach it from a different angle tomorrow.

***

While digging around for info about today’s research I stumbled across the Post-Futurist Manifesto by Franco Berardi.

“Beauty exists only in autonomy. No work that fails to express the intelligence of the possible can be a masterpiece. Poetry is a bridge cast over the abyss of nothingness to allow the sharing of different imaginations and to free singularities.”

(100 Days of Blogging: Post 063 of 100)

The Inauthentic Self

While there are many definitions of authenticity when it comes to the psychological literature on the authentic self, the one that seems to be taking hold is that authenticity (as a state) occurs in the times you are living according to your closely held values.

Inauthenticity, then, is when you are unable to express your values, or your actions are in discord with your values.

What stood out to me in this research about ‘authentic selves’ are the descriptions of the inauthentic self. Those descriptions describe better my experience with work burnout than the burnout literature. And, as it turns out, there are several studies highlighting the adverse effects inauthenticity can have on job satisfaction.

There looks to be a lot of research on authenticity at work. Presumably because the time you are at your job can involve significant moments when your job is not aligned with your values.

Most of these studies involve workers who do a lot of emotional labor. Service workers of various types. When you’re not happy and have to be fake happy for your work, that can take an emotional toll. When you’re a health care worker and you have to help people manage their emotions, that can be exhausting. Or, when you have to manage your own emotions because the way you really feel is inappropriate for the social expectations of the workplace environment, it can drain you.

Managing your emotions can be psychically and emotionally exhausting, and if you’re not finding a way to replenish that emotional well, then the exhaustion can lead to anxiety and depression.

So, I’ll try this insight on for size for a few days. My goal is still to use this seven day stretch to consider my most important desire. One step is probably paying attention to what kind of emotion management I find myself doing at work.

(100 Days of Blogging: Post 062 of 100)

Friday Link Roundup 01April2022

Yesterday I said I’d write about inauthentic selves, and I did! But the post isn’t quite ready yet, so today is a link roundup.

Here’s a very cool short essay about creepy images from movies.

ALL HAIL THE MONUMENTAL HORROR-IMAGE

“The things you see in images like these aren’t brandishing a chainsaw or baring a mouthful of fangs, but something about them feels completely terrifying anyway. It’s not just scary, it’s wrong, like you’re seeing something that should not be.”

#

I appreciated this quote from cartoonist Edward Sorel.

“Right-wing forces are still ignoring facts and promoting divisiveness. Liberals are still gutless. Religion is still the greatest threat to peace and self-expression. … The only big difference is that I am now old. My sense of outrage at the stupidity and cruelty of those in power remains the same, but my desire to do anything about it has atrophied.”

#

Long, but utterly fascinating essay by Jo Walton about dreams: Wages for Dreamwork.

“How plausible is such collective dreaming technology? Shared dreams that are vast games? Certainly events in the sleeper’s environment can influence dreams, and dreams can manifest in sleeptalking and otherwise, so there is at least a little bandwidth to play with. Last year dream researchers conducted two-way communication with lucid dreamers during polysomnographically verified REM sleep. They had them solving sums. Eight minus six. Two plus two.”

#

Wil Wheaton’s lengthy introduction to analog horror, a genre of horror on YouTube I did not existed until this post.

in which i discover analog horror

“Last night, I spent the evening watching analog horror videos on YouTube. I love the familiar, nostalgic, VHS feeling. I love remembering, from the safety of 49, how I felt every single time I heard the Emergency Broadcast System when I was 9 and a Cold War Kid. I don’t know what the modern day equivalent of walking into a room lit only by the static from a TV with no signal that you are positive you turned off an hour ago is, but if you know in your guts what I just described, that’s how these videos make me feel. It’s fantastic.”

#

Here’s a killer cover of Jefferson Starship’s “Jane.” Mostly trombones.

(100 Days of Blogging: Post 061 of 100)

Is There an Authentic Self?

Despite the implied claims in the article mentioned in yesterday’s post, there is no universal agreement among research psychologists about the science of authenticity.

Theories of authenticity are rooted in the work of Carl Rogers and Abraham Maslow. The positive psychology movement launched in the 1990s helped create the framework for authenticity research to take hold.

For my purposes it’s not essential that the theories of authentic self are ultimately proven to be accurate or inaccurate. I’m approaching this as I’d approach any self-actualization gambit. I’m going to behave for a period of time “as if” it’s true.

I don’t know enough about different styles of therapy to say where this concept of acting ‘as if’ is most used, but a quick Google search leads to this page at Positive Pschology News.

According to [Alfred] Adler, “When people have difficulty […] speaking assertively or responding with some measure of empathy, the clinician might encourage them to act “as if” they were assertive or empathic several times a day until the next session. As people begin to act differently and to feel differently, they become different.”

Seems to be roughly the same logic that underlies “fake it until you make it.”

Another key distinction to keep in mind is the difference between “trait” and “state”.

A trait is a long-term aspect of your personality. Openness to experience is an example of a personality trait. There may be moments when you are more (or less) open to new experiences, but if you are measured at random points throughout your life you’ll generally fall in about the same place on the open-to-new-experiences scale.

A state is a short-term experience, a temporary way of being.

I may be really open to new experiences while on vacation (I’m in an open-to-experience state), but mostly throughout my life I avoid new experiences (I typically default to a closed-to-new-experiences trait).

It’s easier to change your states than your traits, so for this exercise I’m only considering the state, not the trait. (Though quite a bit of the research focuses on the trait of the ‘real self’.)

Reading through this research today I was struck by how closely the descriptions of inauthenticity align with my experience of burnout. I’ll unpack that in tomorrow’s post.

If you’d like a more scholarly take on the concepts above, check out this special issue for current research (which includes a critique from Baumeister and a worthwhile article by William Ryan and Richard Ryan).

One of the most disheartening discoveries (for me) while searching through this literature is the frequent use of authenticity research in business management literature. When I read ‘how to become a more authentic manager’ I interpret that as ‘how to better manipulate the workers.’

Tomorrow: Inauthenticity.

(100 Days of Blogging: Post 060 of 100)

Most Important Desire

Last week, as I wrote the post “Protopia Futures,” I wanted to look up the origin of the word pronoia. This led me to Rob Brezsny’s website, which led me to sign up for his newsletter.

Rob Brezsny is an astrologer and a poet. I used to read his column in the local alt-weekly in the 1990s. I always enjoyed his horoscopes for their joyful spark and enthusiastic embrace of the human experience, but once I moved away from that alt-weekly, I rarely went out of my way to read his work.

This week’s newsletter included the following:

“Jubilant Pronoia Therapy

“Experiments and exercises in becoming a sublimely kind, wildly intelligent, gracefully imaginative Master of lucid affection

“1. Write the following on a piece of red paper and keep it under your pillow.

“I, [put your name here], do solemnly swear on this day, [put date here], that I will devote myself for a period of seven days to learning my most important desire. No other thought will be more uppermost in my mind. No other concern will divert me from tracking down every clue that might assist me in my drive to ascertain the one experience in this world that deserves my brilliant passion above all others.”

“My most important desire…”. Since I seem to be on a search for some spiritual salve to soothe my midlife work blues, it crossed my mind to spend seven days reflecting/meditating on my most important desire.

Then I moved onto the next email, the next webpage, the next work project and forgot about it.

Today in my RSS feed is the following article: “What the new science of authenticity says about discovering your true self.”

Science of authenticity, eh? I didn’t know there was a science of authenticity!

Which led me to a research article titled “State Authenticity.”

“In what situations do people experience state (in)authenticity? Experiences of state authenticity—as judged by independent raters—co-occur with fun, success, returning to familiar people or places, spending time with close others (i.e., hanging out), helping others, and being creative. Conversely, experiences of state inauthenticity—also as judged by raters—co-occur with responding to a difficult situation, being evaluated, being socially incompetent, feeling isolated, conforming to or failing social expectancies, and feeling unwell.”

Hmmm. I like all those authentic states and dislike those inauthentic states. Perhaps I DO want to lead a more authentic life. What if my most important desire is to become more aligned with the authentic me?

As I started down the rabbit-hole of learning about state vs. trait authenticity it occurred to me to pause a moment and reflect on what I was reading. Perhaps even apply some of what I was reading to my own life. I decided to lean into Brezsny’s therapeutic contract instead of forgetting about it.

For seven days (including this post) I’m posting about authenticity, realness, and important desires.

(100 Days of Blogging: Post 059 of 100)

Opine

The clock is ticking and I’ve got nothing to post, so I suppose I’ll opine on recent events.

Mostly I agree with Kareem Abdul-Jabbar (and I’m deeply disappointed in Ayanna Pressley).

I keep wondering if Smith would have done the same thing if Amy Schumer or Wanda Sykes or Ricky Gervais had made the same joke. Something tells me he wouldn’t. The only person who can be assaulted in full view of 16 million people and nothing be done about it is a black man in America. (In fact, the assailant received a standing ovation minutes later. America!)

I’m also not buying the self-serving apology issued by Smith (or, more likely, his reps), or the image control BS from Pinkett-Smith.

As I write this I don’t think there’s been a statement from Rock. I gotta say I totally respect his professionalism in that moment and his willingness to put the show, his professional responsibility, in front of his own response.

Bad jokes are not a crime. Assault is a crime. If slapping people for bad taste was a thing, Smith never would have physically recovered from Wild, Wild West. Or Legend of Baggar Vance. Or Pursuit of Happyness. Or After Earth.

Now imagine this scene – Smith storms the stage, grabs the mic, says alopecia is no joking matter and he does not appreciate the joke, tells Rock he should be ashamed of exhibiting such poor taste, and then leaves the theater. Pinkett-Smith picks up the award, thanks folks, and gives a shout-out to Pressly for recently passing the CROWN act (alopecia affects black women disproportionatley because of the heat, chemicals, and tight styles that pull at the hair, styles they are often compelled to have because natural black hair is seen by many whites as ‘unprofessional’). The next day we’re all talking about hair justice and not trying to figure out why so many people are exulting about a another assault on another black man on national television.

(100 Days of Blogging: Post 058 of 100)

More Poetry! How to Manage Your Adult ADHD by Jennifer L. Knox

HOW TO MANAGE YOUR ADULT ADHD

JENNIFER L. KNOX

1.               Stop the action.

                  1a. Does that include apologizing?

                        1b. Because I’m sorry about this poem. I’m so embarrassed.

                              Please forgive me.

3.               Tape pictures of policemen all around the house, especially on the refrigerator.

7.               Cheap tops.

49.             Cheap tops.

                  ii.   Cheap tops that no fit now, nor ne’er will, Captain!

4.               Airline miles, baby [rub hands together greedily]!

8.               See the future.

9.               To soothe yourself, recite Ghostbusters.

                        99. Again.

                            999. Let’s show this prehistoric bitch how we do things                                            downtown.

12.             I’m sorry again.

                  1221.    [Mechanic lopes in wiping his oily hands on a rag] Welp, I’m pretty sure you had yourself a full-fledged nervous breakdown back there!

13.             Stop apologizing.

                  13a.   Right?!? Fuck you! [breaks beer bottle]

                            13af.  [Steven Seagal-style] Make meeeeeeeh.

14-19.        Dear reader…wanna make out?

27.             Have a sense of humor about your ADHD.

28.             Oh, I can hang! [Yell at policemen] HEY, PIGS! CREEP MY FRIDGE MUCH?!?!?!

                  [maniacal laughter, lightning]

38.             Yoo hoo! Mister DeMille! [Lights, sirens, plastic bracelets]

X.              I dance [Bugs Bunny imitating Danny Kaye in “Hot Cross Bunny” (1948)]…

                  xx.   …for you, dear reader!

                          ∞.   [Hand them the box, they shake it (hint: the bird’s dead)].

Y.              See you on the other side, Ray.

Z.               I’m trying to tell myself a different story these days.

                  zz.       “You’re fifty-one years late

                               zzz.       but I forgive you.”

(100 Days of Blogging: Post 057 of 100)