January 2017

Note to self Friday: Reflect on the Uncomfortable. Not sure why. But I’ve been uncomfortable these past few minutes. As it happens I walked up Montgomery with the idea of executing a “walking photo tour” assignment I gave myself today, as a way to get back in touch, get grounded between projects. Guess I have lots of getting in touch to do as the walk is uncomfortable. Why? The discomfort seems to be from lack of psychic force: I’d done a presentation this morning, made cold calls, and confronted my marketing department in trying to solve a long-term problem in my brokerage work. The discomfort was partly from distrusting the psychic strain of all this would produce a good result, partly just from exhaustion. Empty, and without hope of being filled. Uncomfortable.

It’s cold in the City today, so I walked uphill until I got to the Ritz, then stood on the sunny sidewalk out front. Thought of going in but that would be more psychic strain. What if going into a place like the Ritz-Carleton is simply a use of psychic force, not about money? What if everything around me is about psychic force? This morning I arrived at work before 8AM and by the time my cube-next-door neighbor arrived I was nearly into my second hour. Oh the space in an empty office! He started talking up a storm, telling me about his grandfather who’d had a stroke years ago. Had to put up a virtual psychic shield to stay focused. What did it cost? Feels like I’ve burned through reserves and am now depleted. What recharges me?

Pushed through that psychic resistance and went inside the Ritz. Dressed in a stylish suit who’s to question me? There are others standing around the lobby on devices too. Within the outer perimeter it’s easier, so I don’t have to stay out with the grandmoms walking their grandchildren across the top of the hill. But there’s a different psychic challenge inside. The barrier is replaced by a demand. I don’t want a drink or a snack and don’t feel properly demanding, so the implicit demand of the space itself that I act like I belong steadily grows. Funny, if I were more rested I could handle loitering in the lobby longer sipping their lemon water. If I were more demanding of food, shelter, drink also long time in lobby. Too bad, I want to demand. With nothing to push for I’m soon back out on the street. The result of another layer of psychic defenses in that place? Yes. What is the agreement amongst people there? I could’ve taken out my laptop and worked at the bar or in the nearly empty restaurant beside it. Ordered something minor. A cup of tea. What pushed me out was feeling not quite in-sync with those around me. It was a pensive place, gray and empty except for these guests wandering around looking at their phones. It only now occurs that the guests with their sidelong glances, not the staff, are the enforcers of who belongs.

The place I went next had everyone working, good music, even a co-working use fee. Pushed out of the free Ritz-Carleton in favor of a place that charges by the hour. Plus I purchased coffee and a snack (having escaped from the dismal Ritz I was hungry again). Could’ve had coffee at the hotel, but that place is dead–if I’d been staying there I’d have gone upstairs for a nap. At the co-working cafe I slowly begin to gather my forces. I remember sitting at an open air cafe on September 11, 2001, in the warm sun, gathering force. How many hundreds of times, both notable and not, have I been reflecting at a cafe? Now I’m focused on recovering from the efforts of the day, sipping coffee, nibbling on the coconut pudding, letting the music wash over me. Let them charge me $2 an hour, it’s cheaper than paying for parking if I had brought a car…

Managed by psychic forces, I tend to feel discomfortably buffeted, as though by a rock in a river, a sudden turn in the rapids. A drop. A swirl. Don’t necessarily hit the rock, just feel queasy rushing past, changing direction, washing up to a high place (the Ritz) and back down to the co-working cafe. I could sit and look at roses all day, but don’t, I mean can’t. I’m embedded in a psychic milieu that permits me to do this and that, but not all. The best I can do is look at a photo I took with my new phone of some roses on a tabletop, glancing at it while I’m carried towards the next thing. It would be uncomfortable to stop. Would it even be possible?

Am I late? I know the feeling so well. Today I board BART at 8:03 AM. My goal to be at my desk making calls at 8 AM. That makes me late…Or do I make myself late? Walked down to the station rather than taking an Uber, that pretty much made the difference. Talked with my wife about plans for the coming week. That made the difference. Played mini-basketball with my son. Of course you can add up each little thing or you can pick them out one by one. Each one makes the difference. What’s the net product? I’d rather be late like this than on time missing any one of these things.

Maybe the real feeling of being late that rankles is the feeling of being out of control. If I’m late by choice it’s OK. If I pretend it’s not by choice, my whining causes damage to my self. The train sits at the sunny BART terminal at MacArthur and I see an attractive woman with slumped shoulders. I have to say she doesn’t appear attractive. Maybe just for an instant before the slumped shoulders registered. It’s like being late: if you think you’re late and you slump sadly then you’re the essence of late, you’re the self-condemning late person rather than the cheerful late person, and that makes all the difference, doesn’t it?

Now I’m on time, at this moment, because I’m doing the one thing I’ve agreed to do right now. Write. Even though not everything went as planned today, I said I’d call the Uber at 4:45PM and start writing for 45 minutes at that time. Even if I haven’t written for every second of the time, I have done it. Even pulled a picture of a tree taken against the sky and placed it onto this post. Why? Because we all know the tree is not late. And I’m supposed to switch to going for a run at 5:30 PM, and no, I’m not required to do that while in the Uber as long as it gets me home within another 15 minutes. So I could be on time for that too.

Here’s the real challenge. As I was stepped into the elevator to go down to the Uber I could feel it. The resistance. Inchoate. Resistance to actually sitting in an Uber and doing my writing the whole way. And that is the failure, not the reading of emails, the quick playing a round of a video game. The failure would be in that tired moment at the elevator. So I said to myself, at that moment, look at your reflection in the elevator doors, face the resistance because this is it, here.

So, am I late? Only when not present. One thing we do that trees probably don’t do: pretend this isn’t really happening. I’m thankful for all the things I can do that aren’t getting to work on time. I’d still like to set a time and be there. More important to me, to set a goal and reach it. More important still, to have a clear intention and stand with that. So my various intentions are to follow through with some core goals, and deliverables in service to these goals. Such as spending time with my kids, making creative contributions to the world, as for example building applications and writing on subjects that others actually read. Things I’m excited to be present for.

There comes the tricky part. I know in principle, what I want to do. Yet in practice it’s easier to oscillate between two states: reacting to what’s at hand and recuperating from that. Do you notice those two things can describe a life? Technically I’m outside the iron trap now to the extent I’m not either reacting to the command to write nor escaping from my life through writing complete crap. But guess what lies outside the trap? A wasteland. Yes, you step out for a second and there you are in a beautiful, terrible and bare place where it’s cold (or unbearably hot), you have no apparent sustenance, and no one to help you. That’s how I feel, anyway. The iron trap: answer emails, then, after an hour or two, go to the cafe and try to forget. The wilderness: instead of playing a video game, checking email, jumping on the Web while I sip my coffee, I write. And the most wildernessy thing about the Wilderness is stepping into it. That’s when the resistance reaches such a peak that to submit to the desire to not move forward seems very pleasurable: “What, you dare to set aside email responsibilities (pleasure of checking, of addressing, of deleting) to create something new?” Surely not now. And the pleasure of just a momentary diversion–can’t I do that first? Or, wait, what about just writing now. Well, it’s either now or else I’ll be late for life.