I Wonder ...

In Defense of Earnestness: Breaking up with Irony

pinksmish — Thu, 02 Sep 2010 15:51:35 +0000

I’m judgey and snarky. Yuck! I can appreciate well placed and timed irony as much as the next snarky girl next door; I feel as though I am approaching the saturation point however. In looking at the motivations for many of the purchases and actions in my life I am left with a glut of high irony low satisfaction decisions. I feel as though I may be trekking down the junk food of life paths. Embedded within the concept of irony is also a sense of superiority to the object of irony or those who may appreciate the object on a literal level. I believe this contributes to the kind of divisiveness that does my life no good. There is no inherent value in that kind of snobbery. There is no value for me in the possibly resulting drama. I need to reduce the way I live my life to making decisions that contribute to my overall happiness and keep in line with the values I have established as being core to my identity. I need a way of keeping myself honest.

The past few days I have been thinking, rethinking and then over thinking a new system of valuation for my life. I needed a simple concept to base everything around with a definition flexible and cross applicable enough to be able to stretched and applied in a number of different rubrics. Enter Earnestness. Defined by my friends at dictionary.com:

2. Showing depth and sincerity of feeling: earnest words; an earnest entreaty.

—Synonyms
1. Fervent, intent, purposeful, determined, industrious, ambitious. Earnest, resolute, serious, sincere imply having qualities of depth and firmness. Earnest implies having a purpose and being steadily and soberly eager in pursuing it: an earnest student. Resolute adds a quality of determination: resolute in defending the right. Serious implies having depth and a soberness of attitude that contrasts with gaiety and frivolity; it may include the qualities of both earnestness and resolution: serious and thoughtful. Sincere suggests genuineness, trustworthiness, and absence of superficiality: a sincere interest in music.

I may stretch the definition a little bit or even ignore certain parts of it in some cases (mainly related to the contrast with gaiety) but the level of earnestness a decision exhibits in keeping with my values and ideals has become the new way in which I measure its worthiness in my life. What is my honest reaction emotionally to this decision? Will it make me happy? It is necessary? Will this decision result in more industriousness and happiness in my life? Basically everything in my life right now needs to be multi-functional in some how. I will no longer be coveting the 3 wolf moon t-shirt because I find it ironically amusing but I may very find the confidence to openly declare my sincere appreciation for Everybody’s Rockin by Neil Young and the Shocking Pinks.

As I noodle it out, I will be posting a serious of how I am working to apply this concept in my life. Probably the easiest will be describing how I’m using this to evaluating purchasing and design decisions. I suspect the more challenging aspects like applying the concept of earnestness to interpersonal relationships may take a little longer.

If the bear is hungry, the bear will eat.

pinksmish — Wed, 25 Aug 2010 18:40:39 +0000

The scariest part of making a dream come true: Doing it. I have held the notion of being a writer as my secret dream occupation for many years now. The romance of the novelist exercising their defects and personal demons through prose is inescapable. The travel writer toting around a notebook, leather messenger bag and a spare pair of khakis has always tickled me in the wistful place.

The other day I was looking at my personal growth and coming up with new goals. So far my personal growth has been mainly focused on overcoming fears and cultivating habits that will lead to a better life. I have also done some serious self examining. I have looked into my flaws and recognized them for what they are. I have made plans to move past them. I have focused on honing and refining what it means to be me. As of right now, I have done very little broadening of what it means to be more or extending my hopes and dreams into a more realistic sphere. That changed today.

I made the decision to start on a path that could, with much hard work and commitment, lead me something that resembles the wordsmith existence for which I have longed. This is terrifying. I have a plan, I have a check list. I have ideas. I signed up with a couple freelance web article aggregators to test my ability to sell my words. I have ideas for a couple articles that I think could generate traffic. I talked with my sister about collaborating on producing a short film. I came up with a sketch of an idea for the short film. The prep work is drawing to a close. This means I am reaching the precipice of the “put up or shut up” phase of my dream. Yep! I’m skeered!

Cross your fingers that my resolve wins out over laziness. If I fail because I simply lack the talent to support my life this way (or augment my life this way for that matter) then that is fine. If I fail because I lack the discipline to put my talent to work, well then I might as well hang myself with a broken shoelace.

World Shut Your Mouth

pinksmish — Tue, 17 Aug 2010 18:58:38 +0000

Last night I returned from what I am going to go ahead and label a “fruitful” and “delightful” visit with my sister in Los Angeles. The drive up was not too terrible; the drive back was even less painful. The time in between contained some of the more comfortable and congenial moments I have had the pleasure of sharing with my sister. This isn’t to say that we have problems getting along, the love and respect is unquestionable. I would say the problem has more been other things getting in the way.
The last year and a half I have started the process of coming out of a very long, very deep depression. Its kind of like forcibly birthing yourself again your mind. It’s amazing, dizzying, painful and fun all at the same time. In this time, I have found that my relationships with my sisters have been steadily improving as my admiration for them has grown. Last year I spent a great day with my sister #1 (whom I visited this weekend). It was probably the best we had connected in many years. That felt great. I would have been perfectly happy to stay at that level of connection with her. We could talk, we could laugh. Fast forward to this last weekend:
I hadn’t realized this but in the last few months I believe my sister has been undergoing a familiar process of self actualization. She moved and she is chasing her dream. She is making her creativity a priority in her life. The difference in her mood was certainly visible this weekend. She’s stressed, she’s neurotic; she wouldn’t be my sister if she wasn’t; but she is also happy. I feel a kindred sense of evolution with her right now. Its wonderful.
She is also working on a writing project which of course endears her to me immensely. I often make a thousand and one excuses for not doing it but writing is definitely a passion in my life. Being around my sister and her love for beauty and expression, spurred a little muse in myself. I want to write again. I cannot express how grateful I am for that.
So right now I am wondering how many people would benefit from taking a little one on one time with members of their family. Ask them about their passions and their goals. Even if you cannot completely relate with every aspect of them (for example I have no desire to be in front of the camera and my sister could live there), there are little wondrous things to be discovered. I have tried to keep my goal of growth and “bettering” myself foremost in mind but like my connection with my lovely sister, the world gets in the way. It was nice to push the world out of the way and not only connect with a very fascinating and dynamic person but also recommit myself to finding and living the life I need.

Thanks Lele!

Awesome Links of Awesomeness

pinksmish — Thu, 12 Aug 2010 20:05:24 +0000

Clearly I have a problem with productivity; at least with staying on task and being productive with my goals and personal projects. One of the things I am currently working on is staying on task more and accomplishing all these lofty goals I have set out for myself. All the good intention in the world is a complete failure if I cannot capitalize on it. To that end, I have collected a modest list of links to various things that have been making my life easier and more productive. I am only roughly 2 weeks late in sharing them, but I can finally cross this off my to-do list.

Springpad: springpadit.com

This is a web based personal assistance/life organizer. It keeps its functionality from being overwhelming my organizing things into different “notebooks”. You can therefore narrow what you are looking at into different categories. It uses a smart bookmarking system and syncs with Google calendar. It can also send sms alerts and email alerts for events. Plus! It has a home decoration project notebook. For me! Iphone/Android apps = happy.

Mint: http://www.mint.com/

Mint is a surprisingly easy to use and fun personal finance manager. Seriously, I’ve been evangelizing about this one. Paying off debt, saving for a vacation, this makes it easy and breaks down your spending so you can see where you are wasting money. Trust me; almost everyone is wasting money somewhere. It has problems with BofA but there are iphone/android apps and it WILL help.

Unclutterer: http://unclutterer.com/

Ask my dad and he will say the biggest problem I face is clutter. I have, to quote him “too much shit”. Unclutterer is pretty much determined to streamline your life. It will inspire you to pare down your possessions and make your life work more seamlessly. Get more done with less. This site is aspirational for me. I hold that the more I don’t have to think about mundane tasks and my routine is efficient, the more time and energy I will have for brilliance. Brilliant!

LifeHacker: http://lifehacker.com/

Get more done with less, again! This site just attempts to make life easier. It has creative ways to get what you want by repurposing what you already have and are not using. There are lots of great DIY projects and suggestions for things to make life easier. This is how I found Springpad. This is where I found out I could clean the bathroom with grapefruit and kosher salt. It might save you time, it might save you money either way its worth checking out.

ReNest: http://www.re-nest.com/

This is part of the “Apartment Therapy” family of blogs. Yes, it is kind of heavy on design and aesthetics but it does focus on being environmentally sound. There are tons of recipes for homemade cleaners and suggestions for eco friendly presents.

DesignSponge: http://www.designspongeonline.com/

Life should be beautiful. Life should be lived in a beautiful space. Design sponge is like an aggregator of pretty things. They have rad desktop wallpapers with a calendar for every month. There are designs in here for those of us on the cheap and those of us who want to splurge. There are also recipes and random other tidbits that just seem very applicable.

CDNTwo Roku channel: http://www.cdntwo.com/roku.php

Not a web link but a link to a Roku channel. Lord knows I LOVE my Roku. Love it! This channel has a section of taped and streaming lectures from different universities around the country. Art appreciation from Yale, Physics from Berkeley, continuing education is hugely important to me. This is great, FREE (after buying the Roku) way to learn more.

So there we go.. linkage. Goal for tomorrow: Something of substance.

Bit of course correction

pinksmish — Thu, 22 Jul 2010 16:17:08 +0000

I started this with the best of intentions. I meant to really force myself to focus on something that has long been a thought creeping around in the back of my head. That did not work. I stopped updating this and I let myself become interested in different things and found my free time getting sucked up a little bit more. This is not a bad thing. I can without a doubt, this is the happiest I have been in my entire life. With that in mind, I’m making a few changes.

The blog tunnel vision is going to … sort of… come to an end. I still want to have focus; I just want to expand it a little bit. I am going to let this blog encompass all manner of self improvement, religious or not. I intend to open up the posting a bit, but not the standards. I do not want to sink to posting random internet memes and nothing else. I am still holding myself to a standard of analysis.

If I want an actual record of my thoughts and what was important to me that includes a dialogue with those I adore, I need to elevate the language.

With that, if you are still reading this, please look forward to a bit more variety but hopefully still filtered through the lens of discovering those things that enrich the soul.

Zeitgiest the Movie

pinksmish — Fri, 12 Mar 2010 17:42:07 +0000

Zeitgeist the Movie. This movie was in three parts. I’m only really concerned with the first. The second and third parts of the movie seemed a little bit disconnected. The main assertion the first third of the film posits is that the religious institutions are under the control of the same people who control governments and banks. Oddly enough, though they say this is the main thesis of the segment, they don’t really go into that so much. What the film does discuss is the similarities between religions. It weaves a pretty convincing argument that most western religion can all be traced to pagan sun worship.

Please note that all statements below are paraphrased from the film and meant to attempt to convey the opinion of the film (not necessarily MY opinion).

Sun and Star worship has been a common throughout human history. A great example of this is the story of Horus in Egyptian religion. Horus’s journey through the underworld is an allegory for the setting and rising of the sun. Horus was born on December 25^th to a virgin. He had 12 followers called disciples and was referred to as the “Lamb of God”. He was betrayed, crucified, buried for 3 days and then resurrected. This motif of virgin birth and resurrection is repeated through many different cultures. Attis, Krishna, Dionysus and Mishra all share commonalities with the Horus story. Of course in this age the most recognizable comparison to the Horus story is the story of Jesus. So why all the commonalities? Is this some manifestation of the universal consciousness (not that I’ve researched this enough)? Apparently it all goes back to the sun and stars.

The birth date is pure astrology. Yes, astrology. The brightest star in the sky on 12/25 is Sirius. On 12/24 the constellation known as the “3 kings stars” follows Sirius. Bethlehem is a reference to Virgo (through some complicated tracing of the word wheat that sadly my notes missed). Virgo or “the virgin”. So here we have a virgin birth and 3 kings that follow. The virgin birth and Christmas are astrologically motivated and so too are the disciples and the resurrection.

The 12 disciples or apostles are a reference to the 12 signs of the zodiac. There really wasn’t much in the film that talked over this except for the similarity in the number. 12/25 is the sun’s lowest point in the sky. It rests in the “southern cross”. It stays low in the sky for a period of 3 days. This is a transitional period for the sun after which it begins to rise in the sky again. So the sun “dies” and 3 days later is resurrected. The return of the light is usually celebrated at the spring equinox, or Easter.

In addition to the disciples being related to the sign of the zodiac, the traditional cross with the circle is an adaptation of the pagan zodiac cross symbol. It is generally accepted that to transition the population Christianity did adopt some pagan symbols and transform them into Christian symbols so this point does make sense.

In additional to the story of Jesus being an astrological allegory, it seems to that the “End Times” may also be of astrological significance. The end of days is a mistranslation of the word “aeon” meaning “Age”. This refers to a process of equinoxes. Every 2150 years the Spring Equinox is in a different house of the zodiac. This is referred to as an “Age”. We are currently in the age of pieces. This is represented by the fish. There is a plethora of symbolism tying the figure of Jesus with the fish. It said that Moses represented the age of Aries, or the Bull. This means that the story of the calf is actually an allegory for the ushering in the age of Pieces. The line in the bible referring to Jesus being with his followers until the end of the Age and that they will know this by looking for a man bearing a pitcher of water is symbolism for the ending of his age. The age of pieces will be proceeded by the Age of Aquarius, which is depicted as a water bearer, usually a man with a pitcher. The movie then goes on to state that Jesus was the solar deity of the Gnostic sect. It also asserts that the characters of Sargon and Moses are closely related. They were both known as law givers and were both placed into a reed basket on a river to avoid infanticide.

With all these parallels being drawn, it would seem that that the Christian religion is just another in a long line of solar allegories. I am not sure how well researched and back up these claims are, but I do plan on checking all this out. Not quite sure if the astrological community should start rejoicing right now. I’ve always noted similarities between religions so I don’t doubt there is some cross over. Does this invalidate anything though? Does this call into question anything someone believes? Or does this strengthen the notion that some moral laws are clearly universal and unchanging? This section of the movie begins by stating that the distinction between authority as truth and truth as authority must be maintained. Link below for the brave:

Movie

UPB link… FINALLY!

pinksmish — Sat, 27 Feb 2010 16:37:12 +0000

Its only what? 3 weeks late? Here are the links… order suggested by Mr Honan.

To be read first:

Tyranny of Illusion

Second:

UPB

I havent had a chance to get very far in either yet. There is an AMAZING definition of love introduced in the first book. My information source on this way of thinking says there is no proper name for it. It’s a philosphy. I call it a life philosophy. At any rate, its very interesting and a good counter point to the esoteric Christianity im also dipping my toes in right now.

Zen and the Art of Fly Ball Catching

pinksmish — Sat, 27 Feb 2010 16:17:31 +0000

Life has a funny way of timing things. Start a new project, have chaos enter your life for a while and delay the start. I will be finishing up moving today. It has been exhausting and slightly drama filled but it will be all over soon. It did however, cause a situation that seems to fit in with my whole goal here.

For my birthday a couple years ago my dad gave me the only foul ball he’s ever caught at a baseball game. It was in a Tupperware with the tickets from the game. They had all the information about the event on them. I cried when he gave it to me because I knew what a big thing it was for him to do. I came back to my old place one day to find all my things piled very haphazardly in the living room. This annoyed me to say the least. Anyway the upshot is that I can’t find the Tupperware with the baseball.

I got very upset at first. Very upset. I got to thinking this morning about the baseball. What was inherent in the baseball that makes losing it so devastating? I didn’t have it only display. It’s not exactly aesthetically pleasing. It’s the story behind the object that gives it meaning. Well the object being gone doesn’t make the moment I got it any less important. It doesn’t take the meaning away from the gesture. Do I really need a physical reminder of what happened? If I do, how can I say it’s that important to me?

This got me thinking about the notion that unhappiness in life springs from desire. It also brought to mind the platitude that everyone seems to cling to at times in their life, “You can’t take it with you”. So what is important in life? The moments or the things? What is important in spirituality the letter of the teachings, the church, or the spirit of the teachings? Is there a middle ground? This is clearly something I plan on revisiting a few times.

I’m also downsizing like crazy. Going from a 2 bedroom to a small studio is forcing me to pare down my possessions to what really matters to me. What is essential and what I need to stay myself. This fits in really well with what I am doing spiritually too. Trying to figure out what is most important to me. What draws me and what speaks to me? At any rate, less slacking soon!

Book Link

pinksmish — Fri, 12 Feb 2010 02:56:50 +0000

Here is the link to Forbidden Faith, this is the Gnostic book I am currently reading. So far I have found it concise and approachable.

Forbidden Faith

Beginnings II

pinksmish — Fri, 12 Feb 2010 02:08:05 +0000

I just wanted to very shortly clarify why I’ve been, and will continue to be, harassing people to read this. As many know, I am incurably inquisitive. I have a good many questions about spirituality in particular. I have been asking people to look at this because I am hoping that as I explore the different forms of belief that certain “experts” who are very near and dear to my heart will respond with additional avenues of information. For example, I am hoping that perhaps Jany and Russ can provide some information on contemporary Christianity as they are my favorite Christians in the entire world (no offense to the others I love you as well). I am hoping that when it comes time for Islam, Jasmine will guide me. I am hoping Corey can offer some insight on the western nature based religions. I am hoping Chris will give me a study guide to secular humanism (in that way that im pretty sure only Chris can do it).

So just as a preview.. here is where I am looking at going for the immediate future:

Gnostic Christianity: I am reading, underlining, highlighting and being amazed by Forbidden Faith. I’ll be discussing some of my thoughts on the first couple chapters of this book soon.

Zen Cooking: Kind of specific but is a concept that is dear to me right now. I like the idea of being present when you are nourishing yourself and really taking in all that this implies. Anyone who has some references for this please let me know!!

Secular Humanism:
I have a couple links for this already but I wouldn’t mind more. Even some rebuttals to read over after i have the main body down.

I think that is enough to get me started here. What I am hoping to do is get through a chunk of something and then do some questioning/summary of the material and just take it step by step. Before I get too into a book I promise to post an amazon link to the title in case anyone (im thinking Rebecca would be most likely) would like to read along. Before I go to bed tonight I will post the information for Forbidden Faith and what I have on Secular Humanism.