10 Minute Rule

I used to pride myself on patience. I felt that all things would come in and at the time they were meant to be. I allowed myself to fall into a universe that I believed was going to ultimately allow these things to happen. I don’t entirely feel that way anymore. Two things here: in a limitless universe there is nothing to suggest that there is not a purpose and a path for everyone and everything in that universe. On the other hand, the path that is the one the universe most means for you to be upon may not be the one you want. Such is life. So I don’t know if fighting for your path is challenging the universe or if the universe is ultimately guided by choice. Consider the boat in the pond. The natural sway of the pond will eventually move the boat from shore. On the other hand, a push will do the same job the universe would have and the boat would be upon the current longer than it otherwise would have. I have come to believe in that push of self—that actualization of purpose that can only be self determined.

all of this is, I suppose, to say that we have a responsibility to get there under our own power. That’s all.

Mondays… Right?

No, I can’t end it there. I am supposed to have so much more to say on a Monday start to the week. Only, this week we are doing our college Comicon and it has been very up and down. I didn’t get the turnout for my first event that I quite wanted, but I am really proud to see the effort the school is putting into the event. On the other hand, I’m not sure a college is the right environment for some aspects of this. Last week my students in my Game Studies class were playing D&D. This is a game more commonly associated with 3AM, and that type of binging and atmosphere is reflective of the game itself. I think that people take more chances when they are comfortable and D&D has always been about that kind of role play and exploration. I created a classroom environment where that was okay. However, I don’t know that the entire school is that space, so when we talk about inviting people to cosplay we have to start thinking about how we are crossing worlds in the way that Venkman crossed the streams. You’re not supposed to do that. But maybe it will work… maybe.

My panel was focused on black masculinity in super heroes. My co-presentor was a psych professor I’ve known basically since I moved to the Grand Canyon State. We flowed off each other easily and were able to get the small group to have real discussion about their ideas. We talked about, among other things, how the black heroes we love (Black Panther, Black Lightning, Luke Cage, The Falcon etc.) were created and developed by white writers and how that created a disconnect between the audience and the author. I think about that all the time. It is hard not to think about it once you realize that Falcon’s history was once retconned to make him a criminal who fell under the spell of the Red Skull and was molded into a sleeper agent to ruin Captain America. Yeah, the first African-American Super Hero was slaved to a Nazi in an effort to destroy the symbol of America. That’s low key insidious.

More to say about that tomorrow.

The more I study and teach mythology, the more I start to unpack the confusion and misdirection that is the story of Jesus Christ. The birth of Christ is a particular puzzle for me. Mithras, who is the Persian Sun God was born on the 25th of December, which Christian syncretism leads us to believe is a particular day of importance for Christ. Easter, which is meant to celebrate the ‘rebirth’ of Christ was et to a specific date when, “The Council of Nicaea in 325 decreed that Easter should be observed on the first Sunday following the first full moon after the spring equinox (March 21). Easter, therefore, can fall on any Sunday between March 22 and April 25.” (cite and cite). Now, this is where Easter gets weird for me. The holiday’s name is derived from Eostre and or Ostara, The later being the festival of the spring equinox, which is to be celebrated on–you guessed it–the first full moon following the equinox. So, there is some obvious overlap there. Eostre is the Anglo-Saxon goddess of fertility and spring, so there is more overlap there.

All of this adds up to a bit of confusion. This also defines the very concept of religious syncretism, whereby we see the “blending of religious belief systems into a new system, or the incorporation of other beliefs into a religious tradition.” (cite). This leads to a series of questions about what Christianity is and what the truth and origins of it actually are. Was there a real Jesus? I don’t know. Was the story shaped to make it more appealing to those of other pre-existing faiths–perhaps to help them ease the transition into this particularly aggressive form of monotheism? Yeah. No doubt.

Mythology teaches us that we’ve believed in certain key things all along. Christianity teaches us that it is the root of all of those things, even though it arrived much much later than all of them.

Tried using the Bento box and it isn’t exactly right. I may be better off with a pomodoro technique timer. The reality is I am struggling to find healthy methods to live a daily life at this point. I did make a (painful) breakthrough. I walked a mile almost first thing in the morning, and ran a block. It was only a block because my body refused to comply with the request. It did go quite badly. Meanwhile I am watching my partner work out hard in the sun and she’s getting right. I need to get on her level.

I need to discover my level with the words too. I used to be the guy who could write for hours, but now it is fits and starts. I think some of that is about the thinking through the problem aspect of really trying to understand this story and the various motivations at play. I don’t want to force the plot, and I am afraid of it spiraling into what I don’t want it to be and not observing the requirements of what I must do, so I’m a bit stuck in parts. Regardless, the work goes on. If ever slowly.

Hardest thing to watch is your kid getting destroyed in a situation where he feels utterly confident. But it happens–or it just happened and I’m struggling to keep eating my meal because it feels bad. I hate seeing my kids fail. I hate seeing that moment of disappointment when they know they could’ve done better but didn’t. I’m going to watch the replay a few times and get a better sense of what happened and how to help him get better.

Some Thoughts:

1. Covid booster is kicking my tushy. I’m just drained all day with blood pressure that is ten points above normal in both measures. My ‘normal’ is already hypertensive, so I’m really not trying to live with this.
2. This is not a great blog because of the reasons listed above. I’m just drained.

I started a new strategy program called Bento Box. It is a cueing program more than anything. It plays music while you move through a series of 3 tasks. The idea is timer based. It gives you X amount of time to do 3 activities. You pick the actions. Today’s three are this blog, grading papers, and working on the novel. I’m in a conundrum on that last bit, because I do have solid fear that the plot does not entirely work. The idea starts out solid, but how it ends???? Haven’t gotten there yet.

Anyway, this is a post about lists and how I need the cue to function properly. I do. I’ve tried allowing myself to operate freeform, and honestly, I’ll just sit around and do anything else but the work required. This program, and it’s soothing sounds, is a good start to get me moving and able to visualize what needs doing.

What needs doing in my daily life is a lot of things. What needs doing most of all is writing and the health stuff–likely in that order. Being contracted to write a novel is a big deal, and if I want to continue being contracted as I have, then I need to deliver the goods on time and in good order. This is a priority in my life. In truth, this represents my entire endgame. I want to spend the backend of my life writing stories and traveling the world with the future Mrs. Talislegger. This is all.

Some Thoughts:

1. Okay, this is not all. I still have time on the clock, and decaf in my veins (coffee might be partly psychological), so I’m still going hard here.
2. Whenever I have nothing left to say, my mind drifts to sports. I don’t know how to feel about that or even truly appreciate if it matters. I’ve been conditioned–maybe I’ve conditioned myself to feel a certain way about this world.
3. Nick Fury is back planet-side apparently. The Secret Wars trailer dropped and looks interesting. I watched it while waiting in the cue for a Covid booster. No notes.
4. I need a good show to watch… Mando is only weekly. There’s Picard though…

First off: I remain in like with Bijan Robinson. Giants should always draft best available talent and he’s it at 25. Unless he isn’t….

Moving on.

Track. It is a highly complex conversation to have, because you are, in essence, talking about individual achievement that can vary from run to run, and is always measured by your PR, but held in live competition, so whatever you do that day is what you do. Yesterday my last born ran 10.84 in the 75m hurdles. That obliterates the school record (though it doesn’t count because it was hand timed) and would’ve been good enough for #2 nationally in that event and distance last year. It’s half a second better than the kid he’ll be pushing as a freshman next year. Better than that, he found his confidence in the moment. He found his mojo, and didn’t even run a perfect race. He has a lot of areas to improve on, and that is going to mean he is going to continue to drop as he ages up. This is ideal. His brother is stalled right now, which in of itself is a HUGE accomplishment. He is coming off a broken leg and is still setting PRs–though they are only slightly number than his peak last year. He’s going to get better and better and better over the year and he’s going to be a top talent in the state by next year. Presently, he’s top 20. He will be top 10 by the end of the year if he gets his mind back to where it needs to be.

Today he’s running the 300m, and friday he’s off to Cali for the huge Arcadia/Nike open and that is going to be a show. He’s going to shine. They both are.

I actually have more posts than are listed. I know this, because when I looked at my screen today I discovered that yesterday’s post was saved as a draft and not published. There are 22 other such posts, and as a moment of Turnback, I give you the following from what was meant to be 1814:

The above post never made it to the page. It remained as a forgotten post trapped beside its brethren for years. Now you see it and the state of mind I was in all those years ago. I’m still into gym shorts, but moreso into jogging pants and not much else is different. I still study the world. I still try to be and see things as opportunities to learn, and I still think coaching is penultimate. I’m quote horrible at delegation, and I still always fail to differentiate people of the same basic style. Such is life.

I don’t know that vacations are the best look. They are, in some ways, but in others it just makes it harder and harder to come back. I took the weekend off and went to the beach. Oddly, I had to pass through a snowstorm to get there. Once I arrived it was like the pressures of the universe just fell away. I was out. I was away from the daily grind of home environment and the office… But it wasn’t meant to last. I’m back now and I honestly could do without it. I think more of the time away reminds me that I don’t want to be grinding. By the end of the school year I am just spent and out of ideas. I can work the online stuff easily–that is an entirely different part of my brain. However, drumming up new content each week for three different newly formed courses is sucking up all my energy and I don’t want to keep it up much longer. It is April, so I don’t have to, but dang. I want to be on vacation again… today.

I think this is what a mid-life crisis feels like. Supposedly I’m in the window–40-60. I also feel like I am at the beginning of the crisis when I am recognizing this existential dread of knowing there is an end coming (before your thirties I don’t think you can really fall into that understanding without some major medical crisis) and I am not done with living or even have lived nearly enough. I am seeking body change as a start. I am seeking a way of extending the time on the clock as much as possible, because I want to live more life and do more things and experience more of this lovely planet. I haven’t quite shucked the idea of living forever, but it feels more and more alien to me nowadays.

I also am truly exhausted by my daily life. I don’t care about the banality of most things. I try to escape into virtual worlds, thus creating a secondary banality I can only tolerate for so long and in so many ways. What I want are experiences that shatter the rote of meetings and people talking in circles or about nothing for hours. I’m rescued by what I teach because I am surrounded by smart and interesting creators. Outside of that space, squat. Seriously, I teach only for the students. I don’t have the cares I used to have for building community with my fellow faculty.

This is all part of that crisis. I need more. I need something else. I need change. I need to be a full time writer and slide into the work every day without the mental distractions that plague me.