Inspiration and Motivation.

Kevquirk recently shared a blog post highlighting A Nun Answering Questions in a YouTube video. I watched the entire video and found it absolutely fascinating. 

I have always found nuns a little scary because I’ve heard the stereotypical stories about knuckles being slapped in Catholic School and in other anecdotes they’ve always been described as so stony and hard.

This video changed my perspective quite a bit. I am happy to have watched this video.

Reposted from Cal Newport’s Blog (original link):

I’m writing this post about eighteen hours before the first polls open on Election Day, and it feels tense out there. The New York Times, for example, just posted an article headlined: “How Americans Feel About the Election: Anxious and Scared.”

Based on extensive interviews conducted over this past weekend, the Times concludes:

“Americans across the political spectrum reported heading to the polls in battleground states with a sense that their nation was coming undone. While some expressed relief that the long election season was finally nearing an end, it was hard to escape the undercurrent of uneasiness about Election Day.”
These results probably come as no surprise.

The question then becomes what to do with this anxiety. The first step, of course, is to vote — and not just vote, but to approach your decision honestly and dispassionately. By the time you read this, you’ve likely already completed this step.

But then what?

Here I have a suggestion that I think could be healing for all points of the political spectrum: use the stress of this election to be the final push needed to step away from the exhausting digital chatter that’s been dominating your brain. Take a break from social media. Stop listening to news podcasts. Unsubscribe, at least for a while, from those political newsletters clogging your inbox with their hot takes and tired in-fighting.

I suggest you switch to a slower pace of media consumption. Don’t laugh at this suggestion, because I’m actually serious: consider picking up the occasional old-fashioned printed newspaper (free from algorithmic optimization and click-bait curation) at your local coffee shop or library to check in, all at once, on anything major going on in the world. I think I might setup a Sunday-only paper subscription as my main source of news this winter.

Equally important is how you redirect your newly liberated attention. Consider aiming it toward real community, with real people who actually live near you, to retrain your brain to stop thinking of the world as hopelessly fractured into vicious tribes. (If right now you’re scouring this post to seek evidence as to whether I’m friend or foe, then you’re already severely suffering from this malady. )

Consider reading books again. There’s a pleasure in the conquest of deep ideas that’s been lost as we thrashed in a digital sea of churning distraction. Spend more time in nature to discover that despite the apocalyptic tenor of the online world, its analog counterpart persists, and is beautiful.

The Republic will still stand without our constant digital vigilance. But it’s unclear if our mental health can survive the status quo.

Fellow blogger Cole B wrote a blog entry I find quite inspiring. In the entry he shares his thoughts around a post he saw on The Art of Manliness, which is about the mindset and intentionality around achieving our desires.

To win and secure the thing you seek, your desire must be potent enough to energize and animate, but not so all-consuming it smothers and corrupts. You must want it, but not need it. – The Art of Manliness

I encourage readers to take a peek a look at Cole B’s entry. I hope you find the same motivation I felt while reading his post.

The ever growing number of ads in my Instagram experience have been depressing me. The depression comes from this ad laden world we live in, but the content of the ads was bringing me down as well.

As I scrolled through lots of airplane, cat, and smiling faces photos, I was constantly being asked if my dopamine levels were off, or if my ADHD symptoms were getting the best of me, or if I was feeling down and depressed. Of course, the ads were geared so I would download an app that would be a cure all, subscribe to a trial plan, and then probably get hit with a whopper of a bill in a few weeks or months. Said subscription would be harder to cancel than a Sirius/XM radio subscription and if I went through that rigamarole I’d probably be more depressed than when I started the app to begin with. So I did the sensible thing and closed Instagram and threw my iPhone across the room like Joan Crawford did in a movie. I think she threw the lamp. Who knows, maybe I made that part up.

I actually made the “throwing the iPhone” part of this story up because I often fantasize about doing just that. I don’t particularly enjoy that smartphones have become a necessary part of life. I would like them to remain somewhere in the complementary category. These days you can’t even park your car at a parking meter downtown without your phone and an app. That’s a whole separate blog entry that I should write someday. I’m not noting this down on my iPhone because it’s in the other room. Intact.

When I start to feel this way I go back and find random blog entries from the past 23+ years of this bloggy thing and look to see how I felt at a certain time in my life. Knowing the past helps me shape my present and plan for my future. I typed a random date and was led to this blog entry.

The Universe speaks once again.

Here’s the text of that original blog entry. Reviewing it has made me feel a bit better this morning. Instagram remains closed.

Spiritual (30 July 2012)

I think I had a spiritual moment whilst standing on the Golden Gate Bridge this past week. It was a glowing happiness that washed over me as I stood there, enjoying the sun and the breezes and the water below. Perhaps it was relatives that have passed on stopping by to enjoy the view with me. Maybe it was the gentle smile from the clergy-like attired man that was there to speak with those that thought about having their last spiritual moment on the bridge. Whatever it was, I felt calm, at peace, recharged and ready to take on the future head-on after a few moments of standing there.

When I returned to the observation area, the man that knows me better than any other person on this world sensed that “something” had happened on the bridge for me. I couldn’t put it in words for him so I didn’t try. I know I felt more relaxed than I have in a couple of years. The feeling carries on.

This weekend a friend asked if I am a spiritual person. The emphasis of the question was on the word ‘spiritual’ versus ‘religious’. I’m definitely not a religious person; I think the vast majority of organized religions have taken the a beautiful intent and perverted into a diatribe of hate, a conversation of a fear and an intent of pure profit. But spirituality is something completely different for me. Spirituality is found when the heart connects with everything that surrounds it. I seek beauty everywhere I look. I fully believe that this life, right now, is just one chapter of a multi-faceted journey and I fully believe that we have kindred spirits that we have known before, we know now and we will know again. I have met people where there was just a resounding ‘click’. When I meet someone for the first time and I feel that ‘click’, I attribute it to some sort of connection and start talking with them like I’ve known them before. I figure we had a conversation in a previous life or something, so we might as well just continue on together. I know, it sounds very Shirley MacLaine. I’m okay with that (though I wasn’t completely okay with her portrayal of Endora).

I know a lot of gay men that are atheists. I know many that have found a path similar to mine; finding spirituality via the Universe instead of relying on the writings of man. Each of us have our own path and I’m fine with that. I’m not going to try to change your mind and I thank you for not trying to change mine. We have our beliefs and I don’t think that it all comes down a binary answer.

I believe that we can do wondrous things for the world if we just open our hearts and minds. Standing on the Golden Gate Bridge opened up my heart and mind a little more. My goal is to maintain that openness and do what I can to make the world a better place. So yes, I am a very spiritual person and I am happy that I have found that again.

The other night I wrote a rambly post about good memories from the past and it made me smile in the moment. This morning I came across a social media post about nostalgia and the 21st century.

I don’t know a lot of people nostalgic about the 2000s.

Now, it’s been long enough, nearly a quarter of a century since the beginning of the 2000s so there’s certainly room to be nostalgic about those times. But I don’t know many people that look upon the 21st century with a lot of nostalgia. We often hear, “the ’80’s were awesome” and “I loved the ’90s!” but when it comes to 2000s, not much. Maybe I”m not hanging around the right people.

Well, for one thing, did we ever settle on what we were to call the 2000s? It’s easy to say and type the ’60s and the ’70s and such, but the ’00s? Are they the “oh”s? Are they the zeroes or the naughties? Or do we just say the “2000s”? It’s funny, as I’m composing this blog entry that decade seems so long ago.

The 2000s pretty much kicked off with 9/11 and from my seat it appears like the United States completely lost its mind as a result of that day. Insane amounts of security theater in the airports, forced us to give up a lot of personal freedoms with the Patriot Act, and the like were gained steam in a time when we had the first modern President we didn’t actually elect, and things just got weird. Then there was the Great Recession at the back half of the ’00s and that was a hoot and a half. At the very end of the ’00s the Tea Party was kicking into high gear and after enduring eight years of “W”, we decided that stupid was really chic and embraced Sarah Palin.

No, there’s not much to be nostalgic about when it comes to the first decade of the 21st century. Things calmed down a little bit when President Obama was elected into office and that got us through the first half of the ’10s, but even that decade doesn’t seem like it’s going to lead us old folks into the same wistful gaze our parents had when they got nostalgic about jukeboxes, drive-in movies, and poodle skirts. As much as I enjoy technology, I’m not wistful about out first flat panel TV.

Perhaps many of the ills of this century have to do with all this (arms gesturing wildly) being nothing to be nostalgic about. Good memories? Of course, I hope everyone has good memories, but while I often read about people claiming the likes of the ’80s and ’90s being “the good old days”, I really don’t think in 20 years we’re going to be saying the ’10s or the ’20s were the good old days.

Maybe we need to all nudge society into a direction that will change our feelings about this era when we look back. There’s also a chance I didn’t get enough sleep last night and I’m starting to feel a little loopy as I finish up the little missive.

Make an awesome memory today.

I’ve shared this music before. Every once in a while I listen to this song and/or watch the video to give myself a little boost when I need it. I hope you find the same inspiration in the lyrics.

Here’s Jess Glynne with “Don’t Be So Hard On Yourself”.

You deserve a pep talk. I deserve a pep talk. Don’t think the worst. Here’s a little chat about catastrophizing. I hope you enjoy it as much as I did.

I’m convinced Betty White’s longevity could be attributed to her sense of humor. Here’s some bloopers from her “Hot In Cleveland” days. She seemed like a fun person.