Category — Uncategorized

I really love this idea from Lifehacker about keeping 5 people in your mind to mentally yank out whenever you get stressed.  I sort of picture them like all the people who came out of Harry’s wand when he was fighting Voldemort in the graveyard.  You know how they circled around him and cheered him on and grounded him and gave him emotional strength?

I decided to make my 5 Josh, the twins, and my parents.  They are all 5 people that I know beyond a doubt what they think of me. (Unless I am utterly and completely wrong.  Wouldn’t that be embarrassing?  If I made them my 5 but they were all secretly thinking that I’m a drip.)

Anyway, I thought this quote from the article was important:

As long as they are happy with me, and see me as the constantly improving, evolving person I strive to be, that is what matters.

How much easier would life be if you only concerned yourself with the opinions of these 5 people?  Somewhat impossible, but what a great thing to strive for.

But I also like the idea of making your 5 not people who actually know you and love you but people — real or fictional — who give you comfort.  Like I was thinking about how Harry Potter is definitely in my 5.  So is Quentin Coldwater and Lucy Pevensie and OfFred (from the Handmaid’s Tale) and Frodo Baggins.  I get to carry all of them in my pocket because I’ve downloaded their books to my phone so I always have them with me.  It’s nice to keep your friends close.

So who is in your 5?

Those words above?  The title?  I never thought I’d write them.

I mean, sure I saw the Unknown Known.  But that’s not the same thing.  Movie about vs. app created by.  Not the same thing at all.

But there was MY finger hovering over that “get” button on the app store.  Free solitaire app.  I mean, that’s not bad, right?  Taking someone’s free solitaire app.

Oh… did you not know that Donald Rumsfeld made his own solitaire app?

WTF, right?

So I downloaded it, feeling 20 kinds of wrong.  Because it played into a conversation I had with my cousin a few weeks ago.  We were talking about a certain author that I will not read because he is living.  Therefore buying his books means giving him money, and giving him money means he lives to see another day and spout his homophobic views.  Whereas I used to teach Knut Hamsun, mostly because it is impossible to teach modernism or flawed heroes and not talk about Hamsun.  But I always kicked off the discussion pointing out that people were allowed to opt out.  Not everyone feels comfortable reading his work.

Where was my line, she wanted to know.  It wasn’t just living or dead, though that plays a role in how I feel about supporting someone’s work.  Still, there are living people’s work that I support even though I don’t agree with a lot of their thoughts, and dead people’s work that I’ll never touch.  It is messier than that.  It’s a case-by-case basis.

Somehow a free app by Donald Rumsfeld passed muster.  In-app purchases, never.  (They’re turned off on the phone.)  Playing it for a few hours before deleting.  I guess?  Why a question mark?  Because I felt weird about playing the app.

Where do you stand on supporting or not supporting an artist (use that in the loosest sense of the word to apply to anyone who makes anything) that you disagree with?  What about one that preaches hate or violence?

I loved this post on Lifehacker about looking at your life as a video game.  It’s a fitness post, but it’s applicable to everything in life and I also think it speaks volumes for why people grow bored or feel bewildered with the happily ever after.

I love level 4 of every video game.  The first 3 levels, you’re finding your footing, but by level 4, the game gets serious and drops the hand-holding, expecting you to apply what you know to solving the puzzle or moving ahead.  Level 4 feels amazing, and that is the point where I make declarations like, “I love this game!  I am going to play this game forever!”

And then I invariably hit a difficult level that makes me frustrated, or I realize that I have to wait a long time for a task to be completed in the game.  I experience a dip that I eventually get through, solidifying my determination with the game.  I am all-in.  I am going to level up and up and up.

And then I hit the game’s level 50 — not the actual level 50 but that level the author discusses in the Lifehacker article.  That point that you’re working towards.  I reach that point and while it feels amazing to be there, it also feels a little… I don’t know.  Not empty.  Not a let-down.  There isn’t a word for it, but I think you all know exactly what I mean.  That moment where you’re not working towards anything because you’ve gotten there.  And suddenly you’re like, “Wait, what is my focus?  I’ve been so busy trying to reach here, and now I’m here.  Where do I go?”

You don’t go anywhere.  You stay there.  You enjoy your hard work.

That is life.  Life is about being happy in the Level 50.  Life is about finding small quests that you can do in Level 50 that keep you interested and engaged.  Life isn’t about restarting the game and trying to get to Level 50 again.  It isn’t about chasing the next great life or scanning the app store for recently released challenges.  It’s about being happy with the life you downloaded and worked hard to build.

I was thinking about this recently because I was playing A Dark Room.  At first, it occupied every waking moment because getting wood, getting scales, getting fur — it was all such a struggle.  It took so long.  But then I got to a point where every point on the map was open and I had a shitload of steel swords and so many teeth that I could build a small castle out of discarded animal fangs.  When I got to that point, I started putting off playing because there were so many games where I was still working to level up.  But I didn’t want to close the game either.  I left it open, clicking over from time to time, but my heart wasn’t in it.

I struggling with this less with life: I like my Level 50.  This is where I am and I assume that it’s where I need to be.  I’m okay with only working the small quests now and not dealing with the excitement that comes from leveling up.  Because… you know… leveling up is a struggle, too.

Maybe that is why I like leveling up in games.  Whether I play or don’t play… it doesn’t really impact anything.  But not hitting the levels I wanted to in life?  That hurt.  That knocked me to the ground.

I don’t know.  It was food for thought.

I’m going to cry foul on a recent Cafemom article about how to know whether your child is happy.  I was a fairly happy child, so I’m going to use myself as an example.

I didn’t have good friends.  Or, I didn’t when I was in elementary school.  I spent many a recess by myself, and I usually brought a book outside with me so I could look engaged instead of staring at the other kids with longing.  Did I have kids at my birthday party?  Sure.  Did I have some playdates?  Sure.  But I would never describe myself as having good friends.  Until middle school, I didn’t have dependable, strong, lasting friendships.

And I would still describe myself as happy.  Maybe not at school, which was a pretty stressful space that I had to spend about 7 hours of my day, but definitely at home.  Definitely a happy kid, overall.

I didn’t know how to look on the bright side.  Have you met me?  I have been a pessimist from Day 1.  I have never spent a moment thinking how great it is that my block tower has been knocked down so I can build something new.  Since birth, I have been much more likely to curl up in a small ball and sob inconsolably when shit happens.  So no, I can’t say that I have spent a single second of my life looking at the bright side of things.  But I would still describe myself as a happy kid.

Was I grateful?  Of course I wasn’t grateful.  Kids are rarely truly grateful because they have no concept of the enormity of other people’s actions.  The Wolvog thanks me for every tiny thing including making pancakes in normal circles.  Do I think he really understands what saying “thank you” means?  No — he says it because it’s polite and he’s trying to butter me up so I will let him stay up later.

Until you become an adult, you have no clue how hard it is to be an adult.  Therefore, your gratitude is tempered by the fact that it comes from a place of not understanding the sacrifice or extension that the other person made on your behalf.  Still, look at me: happy kid.

Okay, I was pretty comfortable expressing my emotions.  Um… that one I can’t really argue about.

Lastly, plenty of time for play.  That’s a hard one because I was never the type of kid who did well with unstructured time.  I didn’t like summer, for instance, unless summer had a rigid schedule.  I am still terrible with the concept of unstructured time.  I even write down to-do lists for having fun during free time.

A lot of kids are the same way.  They derive joy from knowing their schedule is filled and feel uneasy when the day is amorphous.  Was I overscheduled?  I don’t think so, but I certainly had a lot of activities after school including Hebrew school, art classes, and dance lessons.  Plus my version of “play” was mostly reading books OR writing down all the facts I could find in the World Book Encyclopedia on a given topic.  Usually human hearts or exotic fish.  I was equally in love with reading about ventricles and viperfish.  So, yes, happy, even with a lack of unstructured play time since I structured all my unstructured time.

I don’t know.  I can’t help but feel that it may be more useful to spend time with the kid and gauge his or her mood rather than trying to guess at it with an article.  Plus, I don’t think that one-size-fits-all when it comes to happy people.  I’m proof that you can be happy off the beaten happiness track.

We’re snowtrapped in the house.  But I have a lot of eggs.  Like a lot of eggs.  And two bags of clementines.  It’s still coming down and will continue well into the night.

Riddle me this, Batmans (Batmen?): Do you leave your windshield wipers up or down when it snows?  Have you ever seen this done?  Before the snow starts falling, people pull their windshield wipers away from the windshield so they stick out.  Josh does this.  I told him not to do it this time because I was worried the snow would weigh so much that it would crush those fragile wipers.

While I love a good snowstorm, this one is making me really nervous.  I woke up early yesterday and started bleaching down the house.  I wanted to be able to take out the garbage one last time and have everything clean, but it was also about trying to tame my anxiety and instate order when there is no order.

Capital Weather Gang made me nervous about roofs collapsing.  I’m worried about neighbours not being prepared because it’s their first time around snow.  I’m worried about trees falling and houses being damaged and people dying in car accidents.  I’m worried about people not being able to get to the hospital if they fall ill at home.

Cleaning didn’t help.  I am still nervous, but there is nothing I can do about it.  It’s not as if I can stop the sky from dumping snow.  I’m just going to hope that we keep power so I can plow through work and then play some Doctor Who Monopoly.  But it’s sobering as much as it is pretty.