Life never runs on time
Jan. 13th, 2019 10:59 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
shapeofthings2019.
So far, my goal of slowing down has meant weekends at home instead of heading out hiking. This has translated into garden work, car shopping, processing paperwork, cleaning out the garage and other such chores. I've also gone to an art exhibition and a birthday party, and helped friends with an art installation project. I'm not sure I'm doing this "slow" thing quite right.
I bought a car, replacing my nearly 15 yr old hatch that struggles with hills with a nearly 5 year old small AWD that should fulfil my outdoor adventuring requirements for the foreseeable future. It is quite amazing where a determined person can get to in an old Mazda2 though!
Car purchasing comes with some internal conflict. It is inherently an environmental bad, no matter which way I justify it. Do I need a car to survive in the city? No. Do I need this newer car to get out of the city? No. I don't need it. I could do without it. I probably should do without it. Does it mean I can get up into the wild places that make my heart sing and refresh my energy? Yes. And so I justify it to myself and trade off the guilt by donating the old car to charity, by riding my bike and walking more, by being the designated driver and sharing the ride on adventures. Is it enough? The impact of one more vehicle is imperceptible and meaningless against the backdrop of industrial energy consumption and waste, yet I remain another piece of the problem.
Individual choices and consumptive actions are a poor weapon in the environmental wars. We're presented with a false dichotomy of being so morally perfect we can criticise, or so flawed we are silenced. This ignores that we're a society and our challenges are social, cultural and economic. Environmental moral 'perfection' reduces or removes one's ability to work in the body politic to generate the systemic changes actually required. Precarious balance must be struck between the options and opportunities available to us; socially, culturally, economically.
I feel both guilty and joyous about my new car.
2019.
I haven't had any alcohol in 15 days. While I'll excuse myself a few drinks for my birthday, I'm keen to see how long past January I can maintain this. It wasn't a New Year's resolution, but an observational reaction and call to action. My family has problems with alcohol; a fact hammered in by my recent trip back to see the family for Christmas. Dad's been an alcoholic for a long time, and my mum and my sister seem to have joined him. I have a high tolerance for the booze myself and though I try to watch my intake I'd like a better relationship with alcohol, and it's been 3.5 years since I last took a break. I've survived two booze-focused social occasions now, and can see the difference in my skin and the clarity of my eyes, even if the waistline is yet to reflect it. The bank balance will also benefit.
I'm riding to work and organising regular climbing partners, and the old shoulder injury that's niggled for years is getting stronger and stronger after sinking significant time and money into osteopathy and myotherapy last year. Turns out tendons had been out of place since the initial hyper-extension injury 8 years ago, and my muscles had adapted around that, continually pulling in ways they're not supposed to. Now I have to get better about doing the strengthening exercises to recover the now-aligned muscles and rebuild strength.
After the intensity of work last year I'm enjoying having a less pressing work load right now, and reveling in having mental and physical capacity to spare in the evenings. I remain mindful, however, that work will bring enormous challenges again this year and the temptation remains to bring work home in an attempt to "get on top of things" that cascades into poor segregation between work and non-work time. This is made challenging by the complex nature of the problems I work in, the presence of these issues in the mainstream news media, the fact that I find my work quite interesting, and having my brain, which likes to chew over difficult problems continuously, work day or not.
2019.
My word for the year is "boundaries". I need to work on them. In my work-life balance I need to maintain distinction between time on and time off, to focus more on work when at work, and switch off when I'm off the clock. The temptation to blend across is frequently more than I can resist, as sitting in front of a computer for both work and leisure blurs each world into the other.
Boundaries are also a significant theme in my relationships. I have co-dependent tendencies (see alcoholic parent, above) that have resulted in poor partner selection and a tendency to try to "fix" people. I cross their boundaries, and let my partners walk all over mine. In therapy I've scored highly on the maladaptive schemas of "unrelenting standards" and "subjugation", both of which connect through with issues around boundaries. I'm noticeably better at managing these schemas than I used to be, though its still something to actively work on.
It would be nice, I think, to find myself a gentle, genuine relationship this year. I loathe internet dating so minimise my investment there, so I need to set aside time and energy to go out in situations where I'll meet new people who share my interests. That's relatively straight-forward for outdoorsy stuff, though it's proving more challenging on the intellectual side of things, particularly given I'm a little introverted and find large gatherings and noisy places rather over-stimulating and exhausting.
My world is big, and so are my ambitions (to effect meaningful and lasting change) and I'm extraordinarily capable. It sounds horrible to say it, but these days I tend to find many people's lives and perspectives to be frustratingly small and I am so hungry for people who can open my world up further, yet still feel awkward and out-of-place in such scenarios. Also, where they hell do you do to socialise with the worldly high achievers? Is there an exclusive social scene to which my modest background blinds me? Another quandary to puzzle over.
2019: let's see what you bring.
Photos from Tasmania, November 2018
So far, my goal of slowing down has meant weekends at home instead of heading out hiking. This has translated into garden work, car shopping, processing paperwork, cleaning out the garage and other such chores. I've also gone to an art exhibition and a birthday party, and helped friends with an art installation project. I'm not sure I'm doing this "slow" thing quite right.
I bought a car, replacing my nearly 15 yr old hatch that struggles with hills with a nearly 5 year old small AWD that should fulfil my outdoor adventuring requirements for the foreseeable future. It is quite amazing where a determined person can get to in an old Mazda2 though!
Car purchasing comes with some internal conflict. It is inherently an environmental bad, no matter which way I justify it. Do I need a car to survive in the city? No. Do I need this newer car to get out of the city? No. I don't need it. I could do without it. I probably should do without it. Does it mean I can get up into the wild places that make my heart sing and refresh my energy? Yes. And so I justify it to myself and trade off the guilt by donating the old car to charity, by riding my bike and walking more, by being the designated driver and sharing the ride on adventures. Is it enough? The impact of one more vehicle is imperceptible and meaningless against the backdrop of industrial energy consumption and waste, yet I remain another piece of the problem.
Individual choices and consumptive actions are a poor weapon in the environmental wars. We're presented with a false dichotomy of being so morally perfect we can criticise, or so flawed we are silenced. This ignores that we're a society and our challenges are social, cultural and economic. Environmental moral 'perfection' reduces or removes one's ability to work in the body politic to generate the systemic changes actually required. Precarious balance must be struck between the options and opportunities available to us; socially, culturally, economically.
I feel both guilty and joyous about my new car.
2019.
I haven't had any alcohol in 15 days. While I'll excuse myself a few drinks for my birthday, I'm keen to see how long past January I can maintain this. It wasn't a New Year's resolution, but an observational reaction and call to action. My family has problems with alcohol; a fact hammered in by my recent trip back to see the family for Christmas. Dad's been an alcoholic for a long time, and my mum and my sister seem to have joined him. I have a high tolerance for the booze myself and though I try to watch my intake I'd like a better relationship with alcohol, and it's been 3.5 years since I last took a break. I've survived two booze-focused social occasions now, and can see the difference in my skin and the clarity of my eyes, even if the waistline is yet to reflect it. The bank balance will also benefit.
I'm riding to work and organising regular climbing partners, and the old shoulder injury that's niggled for years is getting stronger and stronger after sinking significant time and money into osteopathy and myotherapy last year. Turns out tendons had been out of place since the initial hyper-extension injury 8 years ago, and my muscles had adapted around that, continually pulling in ways they're not supposed to. Now I have to get better about doing the strengthening exercises to recover the now-aligned muscles and rebuild strength.
After the intensity of work last year I'm enjoying having a less pressing work load right now, and reveling in having mental and physical capacity to spare in the evenings. I remain mindful, however, that work will bring enormous challenges again this year and the temptation remains to bring work home in an attempt to "get on top of things" that cascades into poor segregation between work and non-work time. This is made challenging by the complex nature of the problems I work in, the presence of these issues in the mainstream news media, the fact that I find my work quite interesting, and having my brain, which likes to chew over difficult problems continuously, work day or not.
2019.
My word for the year is "boundaries". I need to work on them. In my work-life balance I need to maintain distinction between time on and time off, to focus more on work when at work, and switch off when I'm off the clock. The temptation to blend across is frequently more than I can resist, as sitting in front of a computer for both work and leisure blurs each world into the other.
Boundaries are also a significant theme in my relationships. I have co-dependent tendencies (see alcoholic parent, above) that have resulted in poor partner selection and a tendency to try to "fix" people. I cross their boundaries, and let my partners walk all over mine. In therapy I've scored highly on the maladaptive schemas of "unrelenting standards" and "subjugation", both of which connect through with issues around boundaries. I'm noticeably better at managing these schemas than I used to be, though its still something to actively work on.
It would be nice, I think, to find myself a gentle, genuine relationship this year. I loathe internet dating so minimise my investment there, so I need to set aside time and energy to go out in situations where I'll meet new people who share my interests. That's relatively straight-forward for outdoorsy stuff, though it's proving more challenging on the intellectual side of things, particularly given I'm a little introverted and find large gatherings and noisy places rather over-stimulating and exhausting.
My world is big, and so are my ambitions (to effect meaningful and lasting change) and I'm extraordinarily capable. It sounds horrible to say it, but these days I tend to find many people's lives and perspectives to be frustratingly small and I am so hungry for people who can open my world up further, yet still feel awkward and out-of-place in such scenarios. Also, where they hell do you do to socialise with the worldly high achievers? Is there an exclusive social scene to which my modest background blinds me? Another quandary to puzzle over.
2019: let's see what you bring.
Photos from Tasmania, November 2018
no subject
Date: 2019-01-15 07:58 am (UTC)