by Frank | Apr 21, 2024 | Awareness, Daily Practice, Journey
I woke up exhausted this morning after a fitful night’s sleep. An uncomfortable sock was the culprit. This discomfort nestled inside my cast. I’ll save that story for another time.
I have a cool cast—an Aircast—a plastic and Velcro marvel of science that resembles Vogue’s take on Frankenstein’s footwear. Its greatest advantage is the air pump that allows two air bladders, one on each side of the foot, to provide soft cushions of comfort.
Getting into this contraption involves folding, strapping, and Velcroing the various parts, then pumping up to the desired comfort level.
In recovery, stacks of pillows elevate my leg in the cleverly designed cast, which seems comfortable only for a nanosecond, even less so with an uncomfortable sock.
Writing about this in my journal, I realized how often I (we) go through life with an uncomfortable sock. This small discomfort makes life irritating.
It’s all the small things.
Not saying what’s on your mind and bearing the discomfort because it’s just too complicated to address.
It’s the recurring minor relationship issue that isn’t a big problem, but it sort of becomes the big problem because it represents the big problem. It’s the little things that accumulate into the big thing.
It’s all the things we tolerate in life, trying to be nice, and these things invade our thoughts and psyche—repeating over and over. And I wonder why I devote so much mental energy to these little annoyances, yet it seems there is a little demon on my shoulder repeating the same blah blah every few minutes—it’s the squeaky wheel.
Why didn’t I fix the uncomfortable sock, you might ask?
Because I would have had to get up, turn the light on, grab the crutches, hobble over to get another sock, hobble back, remove the Aircast, replace the sock—the real painful part of the experience—and rejigger the contraption back onto my leg, reposition the pillows, and the covers.
It seemed too hard to fix, but it wasn’t.
And by living with the uncomfortable sock, I didn’t sleep all night.
So, what is your uncomfortable sock you need to deal with?
What little thing is really a big thing in your life?
by Frank | Apr 14, 2022 | Awareness, Mindful, Mindless
“It’s only a small part of me.”
“I never really understood why they focus on such a small part of me; such a small part of my life.”
These words rang in my brain all day and still linger in my thoughts this morning. Now as I sit in a local coffee shop, the simplicity and profoundness of her statement still rings.
How this small part of her angers so many…
How it isolates her and most, if not all, the LGBT+ community…
How it has been used to shame and blame and despise…
And how it’s only a small part of the person, the wonderful amazing human, she really is.
by Frank | Feb 5, 2022 | Awareness, Journey
“Not everything that is faced can be changed, but nothing can be changed until it is faced.” James Baldwin
Life loops, same struggles.
A vase broken, repaired, broken, repaired.
A precious treasure: each repair valuable, each beautiful.
Shards and glue, puzzle and chips, missing and patched.
How magical!
To know restore and beauty.
Sad the unrestored; breaking and crumbling; piles of rubble.
Spirit waits, collecting pieces.
by Frank | Oct 22, 2021 | Awareness, Daily Practice, Mindful, Mindless
You live on your own data island, or rather your individualized version of the Internet.
This may not be obvious, given the billions of sites of content and your experience; and yet it is true nonetheless; especially for any site that advertises.
Historically, search algorithms were designed to help find information; and it about 2 seconds after search was invented that someone figured out how to make money.
The good news is that anything you are looking for is also looking for you. The reason is simple, if you find the content, you will dwell longer, and then you can be offered more advertisement.
It is a numbers game, the more advertisement you see, the more likely you are to dwell and click.
It’s capturing and selling your attention.
The dark-side to all this goodness is content bias, that is the more you click and navigate, this continuously filters and narrows future searches; and the more likely you are going to be give related content.
In short, unless you are extremely technical and with a great deal of effort, get unbiased searchers or content. And the bias is you.
That is right, the Internet is trying to give you content that you want to read; and as a side-effect content that doesn’t agree with you will be harder to find.
Even if you consider yourself open minded and unbiased, reading across the spectrum – this impacts you too!
Think about it as distance. Content like you have read or search or clicked in the past is closer to you and everything else, anything you haven’t reenforced by a view or a click, is very far away. Effectively out of sight.
The Awareness lesson is simple: it is easy to be fooled into believing a majorly of people think like me.
Since the Internet is always filtering your content by your past views and clicks. And so, it is easier to believe you might be in the right and everyone else is in the wrong.
And it is easier to believe that more people, than not, agree with you.
And it is easy to derive your identity from this point of view, and overtime, to believe anyone who doesn’t agree with you must be in the minority.
Do not be fooled, this is the economics, the market of the Internet; and while it helps you and I every day; it will lead you to conclude wrong thinking and opinions.
Realize it is easy for misinformation and fake news to percolate through your Internet experience, your apps, your email, everything you are presented with.
I believe, the data-island effect greatly contributes to the toxicity of the Internet.
by Frank | Oct 12, 2021 | Awareness, Mindful
Never rush through poetry
there is enough time,
walk slowly,
look with wonder,
meditate,
brood,
let it sink in,
lay it down, wait,
read again,
again,
again,
there is time,
let it speak to your soul,
be still, and listen.
be still, and know,
never rush,
there is enough time,
in life,
there is enough time.
by Frank | Oct 11, 2021 | Awareness, Mindful, Mindless
“You’re not changing sides on me. Are you buddy?” said a close friend over lunch one day. The strong spice of Pad Thai filled the air as I contemplated my response.
To me, I am the same person who has been voicing similar thoughts and opinions for years.”
“I don’t see it that way…” and paused for a breath before continuing. Below is a summary.
I must admit my sadness in watching so many friends become estranged over vaccines “facts” and “identities.”
I love all my friends and I deeply respect their choices, although, at times, we may not agree.
My conservative friends demand “personal liberty”and my liberal friends demand “personal responsibility.” To me, it seems the political upheaval and identity and arguments have replaced civil discourse.
It is rare when science and policy must unfolded at the same time. Science is often slow and lumbering as it unfolds. Sure, there are “facts” and overtime these may be reinterpreted in the light of new information or flawed experiments or numerous other issues; and these may seem conflicting as the scientific methods seek to “observe and analysis” toward an understanding of the current “truth.” And of course, all scientist, all humans, are bias, and that is why there is a peer review process; although it too suffers from group-think.
Policy is a political process. It may consider science, as well as, the complexities of a stable society, supporting a mostly private health system, and safety of the population. This too is conducted by humans, it is flawed and biased; even without the issue of nefarious intentions.
Policy is not science; and all science can do is inform. Science is not all the process, it’s just part-of.
The political polarization of the last decades has now become so unproductive and dysfunctional, it impairs the productive dialogue on deeply important issues. Let’s face it – both sides are at fault; and there is plenty of blame on both sides.
And these decades has lead to very low public trust across the board; and deep suspicion of “the other side.”
I’m mindfully sad over my friends and their pain, as well as the state of our country.
“I continued to listen to my friend,” even though, we didn’t completely agree on all the details.
And I realized that “the issue” was not “the issue;” the issues was years of disappointments and disillusionments and resentments and griefs and frustrations and angers all mixed together into a ball of emotions.
And I loved him deeply and still do; and hope to have lunch again soon; and keep the dialogue going. I think this time, it’s my treat; maybe BBQ.
So, instead of making your friends your new enemies, please consider spending time listening to their concerns and remember it’s not just their groups version of facts: there is much more going on.
Realize “the issue” has a deeper roots and if we are ever to truly know another and love them in all their conflicting parts too, we must listen.
