It took more than half a year, but Healed by Anxiety is finally available through Canada’s Kobo e-Reader store!
Yay Canada!
Dec 19 2011
What would happen if past yous met today’s you?
Steve Pavlina recently prompted his readers on Google+ to answer the question, “What would your past selves think of the person you are today?” I identified with this question immediately because I had daydreamed about this very same thing several times in the past decade. This led me to reply to the question immediately and with excitement!
I’d like to share my reply with you because it might help you re-contextualize your perspective on challenge, or reinforce it if we happen to have been led down paths with similar bits of wisdom.
First, they’d be astounded and muttering, “GASP! I will become HER? She’s more amazing than I imagined! But along the way I will have to endure all THAT? How do I survive all that? How do I even find gratitude in it afterwards? How many people leave? How many addresses are held? How many illnesses are conquered? Poverty? Relationship changes How much debt? How many years of… OMG. TOO MUCH! Are you a superhero or something? How the hell are you still alive and even remotely happy?! I would have given up a long time ago.”
Then they’d be terrified to ever wear my shoes, feeling too less-than to rise to any of the challenges.
I’d comfort them with my current smile, my energized passion, my knowing, and my more liquid nature (melted by the fire of challenge). While showing stillness through the pupils of my eyes I would try to inspire them to understand that the challenges they feel inadequate to face would actually change them so that they became “enough” to pass through them, in real-time. I’d say, “Only the moment matters. You are changed only within them. You can only walk through challenge by walking through challenge. If you don’t take a step, standing frozen in fear instead, it will remain an impenetrable wall, standing as rigid as you are. But take one step and the wall reacts, it cracks, separates and you too will be less rigid and suddenly malleable enough to work your way through the first section. This section is the thickest and you will already be most of the way through in that small humble first attempt.” I’d convey that this process is built into life itself, guarantees sufficiency in all challenges, and can be completely trusted.
Then they would become impatient and try to bring too many stuffed animals with them for security as they got started, failing to grasp a large portion of what I told them. But they’d catch on really quick! The challenges would appear with perfect timing and intensity to make sure they did.
Dec 15 2011
Playing with Excel Mashup
Microsoft now has a mechanism called Excel Mashup for people to include Excel content into web documents while providing a javascript API to modify, make interactive or animate. Neat!
The above is a scatter chart of an internal company survey that prioritized risk markers to help determine how to weight fraud alerts in an automated system. (This is a little slice of the fun I’ve had over the years doing data analysis.)
I took the easy way out on this first attempt by using an IFrame, but their API allows for a more flexible DIV + javascript solution. The following sample code mentioned on their site is about what you need to insert a SkyDrive hosted spreadsheet into a web document:
// This sample embeds an Excel workbook with a specific file token into the div called "myExcelDiv"
function execute()
{
document.getElementById("loadingdiv").innerHTML = "Loading...";
var fileToken = "SDBBABB911BCD68292!110/-4923638281765748078/t=0&s=0&v=!ALTlXd5D3qSGJKU";
var props = {
uiOptions: {
showGridlines: false,
showRowColumnHeaders: false,
showParametersTaskPane: false
},
interactivityOptions: {
allowTypingAndFormulaEntry: false,
allowParameterModification: false,
allowSorting: false,
allowFiltering: false,
allowPivotTableInteractivity: false
}
};
Ewa.EwaControl.loadEwaAsync(fileToken, "myExcelDiv", props, onEwaLoaded);
function onEwaLoaded() {
document.getElementById("loadingdiv").style.display = "none";
}
}
Nov 15 2011
Communication shouldn’t be a competition
I’m tired of social network/gathering-space jumping.
The Internet used to feel like this thing I could just connect to, and be there. Now I have to decide to sit in either/all of twitter, facebook, G+, my inbox, tumblr, flickr, picasa, reddit, and a bazillion different demographic-serving sites that have their own accounts and comment engines. Everybody I know goes to different places. In the past 10 years alone, I’ve registered at least 311 separate accounts (that I know of and have documented) to participate in the bottomless pit of segregated spaces where people gather. My parents will visit facebook, but they’ll communicate by e-mail or Skype above all others. Most of my friends are on facebook, but the more intimate ones are on MS Messenger, have blogs and/or call/text me. Most of my game/software development peeps are on Twitter. The distributed.net folks I’ve conversed with since the mid 1990s are on IRC. They used to chat in an e-mail distribution list. Some of my close friends in Iowa are on AIM/iChat, and others will only write/chat in Gmail and won’t reply to phone text messages. Some Iowans have their own blogs, or are on Twitter, and while they won’t call, they will talk on UStream while I type in a chat window.
It’s insane. I’m starting to add notes to my address book entries to remind me of where such and such a person hangs out online, and which communication method they’re most likely to respond to. Why the hell did we allow our communication solutions to exponentiate so much that I have to maintain records of more than 300 logins, and notes on 170 people in my address book?
It’s partially our fault because we love what’s new, shiny and popular, but it’s also because of capitalism where communication is monetized in such a way that everybody wants you to talk on THEIR lines of communication as much as possible. Companies are also trying to get you to let go of the digital assets on your computer or mobile device and let them hold it for you.
Companies call their monetized communication and asset-care: The Cloud.
Apple is clouding. Gmail is clouding. Microsoft is clouding. Facebook is clouding. None will work together and each are competing for YOU to join THEIR cloud through a relationship that is akin to possession. Unfortunately there are so many groups trying to do this on varying levels, and enough diversity in what people are focusing on, that staying connected with each other is like flailing in a blender. We’re drowning with Facebook, G+, Twitter, unthink, iCloud, reddit, phone texts, Google Sync, e-mail, separate login/comment engines, Windows Live and…blah!
I want a universal ella@earth.sol contact address please. This can be my phone number, my video chat address, where you can send long messages to, where you can send short messages to, etc. When you type that into a web browser it will bring you to my profile, and my content that all third party social media wannabes can pull from using an API of some sort. When I let you add me to your contacts list, you will see my permissions-granted level of specified information along with that address. You can then reach me without having to go to some bio on some site where I added references to the 15 different mini-clouds I had to join to reach people because they too joined 15 to reach their group of contacts. Smell the exponential absurdity of communication segregation?
The Internet was meant to be ONE Cloud, and we’ve forgotten this.
My prediction for the future is that there will eventually be ONE Cloud. We’ll have abstracted it as a separate virtualized server farm we had hoped the internet would have become should companies have stepped up in a unified fashion. We know we need to go there or we wouldn’t have so many login creation screens encouraging the use of Twitter or Facebook logins as the tide of separate logins starts to slow down. Microsoft caught wind of this movement when it launched their ID program (one ID to rule them all.) Google did cloud-work with their Sync and Apps solutions. Apple hopped on that wagon too with MobileMe but they change so much these days that you have to run fast and hard to keep up. Now they have iCloud but force you to use the @me.com domain just the same, which is a clever suggestion of, “me, in the (i)nternetCloud.” The instinct is there with all these companies and Apple seems to be telling us they understand it better through their branding, but the implementation of any of these companies remains a separation theology. They’re all fighting each other while you sit there quietly asking them to remember that you would like to have some time to talk to people instead of choose what religion, or cloud, to join.
All of this has to change. I’m hopeful that we’ll smarten up sooner than later because we’re missing great opportunities for unity.
We have to work harder at keeping in touch while we occupy different virtual spaces and our life’s digital assets become scattered across different hosts. This capitalist global communication fragmentation won’t last forever and I expect it will be a joke written in permanent marker on a unisex bathroom wall someday. Communication belongs to no one. It is part of our evolutionary heritage and it’s written in our faces, not a particular login account or privatized “show them ads…oh, and let them post pictures” environment. It’s insane to compete on what cloud people should be a part of like trying to recruit for a religion. Multi-clouding is another form of segregation which humanity needs to grow up from. Segregation never works. Let’s not keep repeating the same mistakes where so much of our dialog (like when G+ launched) sounds like, “I use Cloud X2018. You Cloud X2017 people are demented. Well you’re a Cloud X2017 fangirl! I can’t believe you’re still on Cloud X2017, I mean, the company that made it is so evil.”
—
Case in point, here are some of the social spaces I currently hang-out in thanks to the absence of ONE Cloud (I’ve abandoned some already while trying to simplify my digital life):
- Gmail
- MobileMe
- Messenger/Windows Live/Xbox Live
- AIM
- Personal site
- Google+
- Skype
- Linked In
- YouTube
- Klout
- MyIGN
- GoodReads
- ICQ (abandoned)
- Tumblr (abandoned)
- Facebook (abandoned)
- Yahoo (abandoned)
- Second Life (abandoned)
- Flickr (abandoning very soon)
- About.me (considering abandoning — traffic is too low)
- There’s more but you get the picture.
I welcome your thoughts! Are you feeling stretched too thin as well trying to keep up with all the people you know? Please leave a comment. If you use Google+ and would like to comment there, check out the re-post.
—
UPDATES/Read More
2011-12-13 A Social Sanity Manifesto for 2012
Nov 01 2011
Healed by Anxiety in CAA Montréal’s 2011 anthology
I’m very happy to share that Healed by Anxiety will be featured in the 2011 Canadian Authors Association (Montréal branch) anthology! It will have the privilege of standing next to the works of these fellow Montréal writers:
Alice Lukacs
Catherine Chandler-Oliveira
Ilona Martonfi
Catharine Fleming McKenty
Margerie Kaminesky
T. Leibenkop
Susi Lovell
Alexandra Pollack
Carolyn Van der Meer
Ann Weinstein
Grace Moore
Clarise Samuels
Maya Khankhoje
Ken Kalman
Mary Alemany-Galway
Carol Katz
Jaune
Veena Gokhale
Nancy Gow
Mortimer Levy
Elizabeth Tremain
L.S. Cattarini
Jan Witold Weryho
Joey Bongiomo
Harvey Grossman
I’ve been told that the anthology will be available for purchase for $14 (more for postage) come December. I’ll keep you posted!
Oct 31 2011
NanoWrimo with music
I do NanoWrimo differently. When participating, instead of writing 50k words, I aim to write 50k seconds of music!
To respect the spirit of Nano, all recordings are single-take improvisations. No editing is allowed. This is my favorite way to write and play music, so it’s always a totally satisfying blast.
My first year and attempt (2007):
http://ariellab.bandcamp.com/album/the-stream
The best songs from the 2010 attempt:
http://ariellab.bandcamp.com/album/the-stream-ii
I’m not participating this year because I had to sell my music gear for food (unemployment got F-U-N for a while), but my friends and I love it when I Nanowrite music and I will certainly jump back in when I can!
I have to share with you these words from my past Central Iowa Regional representative, which helped inspire all of us: YEA CRAP!
Use this wisdom with care! If this doesn’t help, and you get stuck in your composition, just throw in a ninja!
Oct 13 2011
Wants vs Needs vs Desires
Needing is perceived lack through a lense of anxiety.
Wanting is the belief that happiness is outside one’s self seen through a lense of insufficiency.
Desiring is choosing to experience.
Oct 02 2011
The three traps of heroism
Continuing on the theme of heroism, I’d like to flip your attention from recognizing your personal hero, to how to be a good hero to others. There are traps that can rob a good intention of its impact and effectiveness and by avoiding the main three discussed below, you’ll be a better friend, supporter, advocate and source of change.
If you remember these three traps or not, you can easily recall their underlying theme that being a hero to others requires experience with personal heroism. The old adage of loving yourself to know how to love others applies here. When you have lots of practice with honouring your difficulties for how they’ve caused you to grow, you can better respect them in others.
The three traps of heroism:
- Your growth made you a hero; don’t deny it from another. When it comes to slower heroism, you have to get permission to help someone because if you save someone from their difficulty, you will be denying them their growth opportunity. Receiving help can be seen as skipping steps, devaluing experience, or moving too quickly. Those you help can get angry with you for this, feel smothered, or that you’re overly meddlesome.
- The emotional pay-off of being a hero to others is addictive. It feels so great to help others that you risk believing that the quickest and best way to feel great is through being a hero to others. If subtly setup as a personal pay-off instead of the giving of a gift, a person can do charity all day long for years and despite looking great on the outside, they won’t have empowered many people. True leaders don’t create more followers, but more leaders. Make yourself obsolete. Pay-off heroism parading as charity corrupts the genuineness of good intentions. You’ll work harder only to realize that people are responding less, and will want you around less.
If you’ve been in enough relationships, you will have seen this dynamic at play in romantic situations that led to a breakup. It’s a common mistake to give a partner so much that you feel super-great being so devoted, but then become completely confused when it only chases the other person away. You’re left confused and your head spinning. It’s such a seductive thing to do; to be great to someone, feeling great/responsible/loving as a result, doing more and all without realizing that you’ve shifted the giving to a taking.
- As an extreme of #2, watch the ego. You can begin to feel overly important when experiencing heroism too frequently. This is a trap religions often fall into. To counter this, reach for humility and hold dear greater spiritual truths that: Nobody NEEDS you in particular to save them. Someone else might help as life shifts people, places and things into position or they might save themselves. If you believe in God, then you can recognize that God is omnipresent for all, already. Difficult situations are often gifts to wake people up and it’s best not to prevent them from having that awakening. You were not denied yours, so be considerate. Be very clear on all this so that you don’t live a life of excessive perceived need that without you, the world and it’s people will never become more. Excessive self-rewarding and growth inhibiting heroism is called martyrdom and it’s less constructive than our society has romanticized it to be.
The world is always made better with you in it, if you act heroically or not, so you can be relaxed about it. Find the balance by being of the heart in crisis, and of the heart and mind when events are moving more slowly. When in doubt, don’t worry about being a hero because the life-instinct will kick in when it really, truly, honestly, needs to. Life knows more than you and is fundamentally you below your ability to think. Your mind doesn’t have to control it, understand it nor know it. Life will spring forth without a thought as many parents will confirm, “I just jumped into the lake without thinking to save my son”.
Oct 02 2011
Personal hero
We like to honour people who jump into lakes to save people from drowning, or find the incredible strength to lift cars, because it shows life’s protective instinct and selfless love. These are the two greatest things about being a human being and what serve us best regardless of context.
Many different kinds of heroes exist: moving-object-dodge heroes, obstacle movers, grass roots members/advocates/changers of society, inventors, best friends, patriots who murdered others for nationalism, born-different-survivors and more.
But did you know that selfless love and protective instincts can be activated consciously, and even aimed inward? “Selfless love…aimed at myself? WHAT?” Exactly. Welcome to a dichotomy that will enrich your life.
Personal hero
You’ll find it easy to recognize a hero when you see one. They inspire you. But do you see the hero that YOU are and do you inspire yourself? The self-identified hero, or personal hero, is another kind of hero that people frequently miss the opportunity to notice and celebrate.
I’ve spent more than a decade trying to get people to honour their personal heroism. I’ve had a lot of success online, through community building, writing or in private conversation but I wish self recognition could be taught to us in greater numbers and with clarity. Personal heroism is a step above pride because it’s not about accomplishment, but becoming. It’s important that you recognize the difference and give this gift to yourself.
Odds are that if you’ve noticed it or not, you have already been or are in the process of experiencing yourself as a personal hero (maybe even again)!
A personal hero is someone who seeks to stop living like a victim, tries to let go, to participate willingly in their own change, and become the new person the catalytic pain was meant to motivate. This does not mean sucking it up. This means facing it, allowing one’s self to feel it, to scream and cry when necessary, and then create peace. Heroism is a journey. If you are at any step of this process, you are already there. Don’t stop. You are enough.
Those who participate in change that nobody even notices are still heroes in the making, and deserve respect. Give this to yourself. Fast is infrequently better. If you want to experience your heroism, realize that the potential is already there and you just have to live authentically. When you hurt, hurt, and then let this move you forward.
Heroes don’t need to save the day. They just need to persist and give themselves the gift of feeling the tenacity of life coursing through them. Quickly or slowly, it’s the same process. If you stew or jump, heroism is at play. Start in your heart and appreciate what you’ve been through for what it has done, and will yet do, to propel you forward into depth and awareness.
In short, acknowledging that you are life, not a life, is heroism.
Sep 28 2011
You
You are the only you that can view life as you do.
Without you, we can’t see why, when, where nor who.
Without you, we simply won’t see ourselves through.
From me to you, thank you for being you.
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