So, I've done it. I have seriously scaled down my bloggage. That's a portmanteau for blog+baggage. :) I have something planned for On A Red Horse, so for now it's just sitting there, but I have gone through and taken down the personal stuff that was on this blog, and I have downloaded and deleted my livejournal. I have started a Tumblr account for a dozen or so reasons, not least of which is the simple beauty of starting something fresh. To explain it at its most derivative: Dusty took his star and I am rediscovering a life without chains. Rebirth is a curious thing. Seems death is always necessary to reach it.
At any rate, feel free to check me out and keep up with me here: thesecondseal.tumblr.com
01 April 2013
13 December 2012
23 July 2012
I wish I could say that this was just a mood I'm in...
And as I told the BH today...This has nothing (well almost nothing) to do with my crush on Tom Hardy. ;)
18 June 2012
The Last Psychiatrist: Kids Nowadays
First of all, I have looked all over this blog and found nothing about how the author feels about excerpts. I feel that I would not care as long as things were posted and credit given so I am going to do both of those things. The Last Psychiatrist. Some of this stuff is frightening, but it resonates, and I think that it's important. Some of it's funny; some of it is sad only because we laugh. I am particularly fond of the following portion, which came from a post today:
Amy Schumer Offers You A Look Into Your Soul
But I pulled out the bit that I liked the best, because it is a lengthy in its entirety and also because this seems to be one of my biggest concerns currently. (not that sex, addiction, and absolution don't come up regularly enough). Dear Last Psychiatrist, if you track links to your page and find this one offensive, you have my apologies. A simple note and I will remove the large quote, but leave the command for my very few readers to go read your stuff. :)
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~From The Last Psychiatrist~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
"Slightly off topic but here's an important example: say you yell every day at an/your eight year old girl for sloppy homework, admittedly a terrible thing to do but not uncommon, and eventually she thinks, "I'm terrible at everything" and gives up, so the standard interpretation of this is that she has lost self-confidence, she's been demoralized, and case by case you may be right, but there's another possibility which you should consider: she chooses to focus on "I'm terrible at everything" so that she can give up. "If I agree to hate myself I only need a 60? I'll be done in 10 minutes. "
It is precisely at this instant that a parent fails or succeeds, i.e. fails: do they teach the kid to prefer (find reinforcement in) the drudgery of boring, difficult work with little daily evidence of improvement, or do they teach the kid to prefer (find reinforcement in) about 20 minutes of sobbing hysterically and then off to Facebook and a sandwich? Each human being is only able to learn to prefer one of those at a time. Which one does the parent incentivize?
If you read this as laziness you have utterly missed the point. It's not laziness, because you're still working hard, but you are working purposelessly on purpose. The goal of your work is to be done the work, not to be better at work.
For a great many people this leads to an unconscious, default hierarchy in the mind, I'm not an epidemiologist but you got it in you sometime between the ages of 5 and 10:
<doing awesome>
is better than
<feeling terrible about yourself>
is better than
<the mental work of change>
You should memorize this, it is running your life. "I'm constantly thinking about ways to improve myself." No, you're gunning the engine while you're up on blocks. Obsessing and ruminating is a skill at which we are all tremendously accomplished, and admittedly that feels like mental work because it's exhausting and unrewarding, but you can no more ruminate your way through a life crisis than a differential equation. So the parents unknowingly teach you to opt for <b>, and after a few years of childhood insecurity, you'll choose the Blue Pill begin the dreaming: someday and someplace you'll show someone how great you somehow are. And after a few months with that someone they will eventually turn to you, look deep into your eyes, and say, "look, I don't have a swimming pool, but if I did I'd drown myself in it. Holy Christ are you toxic."
"Well, my parents were really strict, they made me--" Keep telling yourself that. Chances are if your parents are between 50 and 90 they were simply terrible. Great expectations; epic fail. Your parents were dutifully strict about their arbitrary and expedient rules, not about making you a better person. "Clean your plate! Go to college!" Words fail me. They weren't tough, they were rigidly self-aggrandizing. "They made me practice piano an hour every day!" as if the fact of practice was the whole point; what they did not teach you is to try and sound better every practice. They meant well, they loved you, but the generation that invented grade inflation is not also going to know about self-monitoring and paedeia, which is roughly translated, "making yourself better at piano."
"You don't know how hard it is to raise kids," says someone whose main cultural influence in life was the Beatles. The fact that you will inevitably fail in creating Superman is not a reason not to try. Oh: I bet I know what you chose when you were 8.
The mistake is in thinking that misery and self-loathing are the "bad" things you are trying to get away from with Ambien and Abilify or drinking or therapy or whatever, but you have this completely backwards. Self-loathing is the defense against change, self-loathing is preferable to <mental work.> You choose misery so that nothing changes, and the Ambien and the drinking and the therapy placate the misery so that you can go on not changing. That's why when you look in the mirror and don't like what you see, you don't immediately crank out 30 pushups, you open a bag of chips. You don't even try, you only plan to try.The appearance of mental work, aka masturbation. The goal of your ego is not to change, but what you don't realize is that time is moving on regardless. Ian Anderson wrote a poem about this, you should study it carefully.
Coincidentally, four days after Amy told her story I heard Howard Stern railing about an uncle who liked to play golf. "It infuriated me that he never took a lesson, never tried to get better. He was happy just playing, he didn't care if he got any better. It made no sense to me. How can you enjoy something and not want to get better at it?" Answer: some people are happy with par. He isn't, which is why he succeeded. The retort is, "well, I don't want to have to improve on everything, some things I just want to mindlessly enjoy." I sympathize, but I also own a clock, and there are only 24hrs in a day. Look on how many of those hours go to true self-improvement vs. mindless enjoyment, and despair.
That hierarchy you learned-- and yes, it was learned in childhood-- applies toeverything, including addictions. Addiction may be biological, but no one ever claims that getting clean is biological. "When I hit 45, my testosterone levels fell which also lowered the dopaminergic activity in the reinforcement pathways of the brain, so I was able to get off dope." Wait, is that true? HA! No. It's a decision, made at that time in those circumstances. I know it's a hard decision, but like every other decision in life it is ultimately a binary one. Biology is pulling you towards 0, learning pulls you towards 1.
"All this happens at age 8?!" Think of how many years you've since practiced that hierarchy. "So after childhood, you're screwed? You can't change?" Oh, no, people change all the time, once they figure out how they're sabotaging themselves. Now it's your turn."
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~From The Last Psychiatrist~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
"Slightly off topic but here's an important example: say you yell every day at an/your eight year old girl for sloppy homework, admittedly a terrible thing to do but not uncommon, and eventually she thinks, "I'm terrible at everything" and gives up, so the standard interpretation of this is that she has lost self-confidence, she's been demoralized, and case by case you may be right, but there's another possibility which you should consider: she chooses to focus on "I'm terrible at everything" so that she can give up. "If I agree to hate myself I only need a 60? I'll be done in 10 minutes. "
It is precisely at this instant that a parent fails or succeeds, i.e. fails: do they teach the kid to prefer (find reinforcement in) the drudgery of boring, difficult work with little daily evidence of improvement, or do they teach the kid to prefer (find reinforcement in) about 20 minutes of sobbing hysterically and then off to Facebook and a sandwich? Each human being is only able to learn to prefer one of those at a time. Which one does the parent incentivize?
If you read this as laziness you have utterly missed the point. It's not laziness, because you're still working hard, but you are working purposelessly on purpose. The goal of your work is to be done the work, not to be better at work.
For a great many people this leads to an unconscious, default hierarchy in the mind, I'm not an epidemiologist but you got it in you sometime between the ages of 5 and 10:
<doing awesome>
is better than
<feeling terrible about yourself>
is better than
<the mental work of change>
You should memorize this, it is running your life. "I'm constantly thinking about ways to improve myself." No, you're gunning the engine while you're up on blocks. Obsessing and ruminating is a skill at which we are all tremendously accomplished, and admittedly that feels like mental work because it's exhausting and unrewarding, but you can no more ruminate your way through a life crisis than a differential equation. So the parents unknowingly teach you to opt for <b>, and after a few years of childhood insecurity, you'll choose the Blue Pill begin the dreaming: someday and someplace you'll show someone how great you somehow are. And after a few months with that someone they will eventually turn to you, look deep into your eyes, and say, "look, I don't have a swimming pool, but if I did I'd drown myself in it. Holy Christ are you toxic."
"Well, my parents were really strict, they made me--" Keep telling yourself that. Chances are if your parents are between 50 and 90 they were simply terrible. Great expectations; epic fail. Your parents were dutifully strict about their arbitrary and expedient rules, not about making you a better person. "Clean your plate! Go to college!" Words fail me. They weren't tough, they were rigidly self-aggrandizing. "They made me practice piano an hour every day!" as if the fact of practice was the whole point; what they did not teach you is to try and sound better every practice. They meant well, they loved you, but the generation that invented grade inflation is not also going to know about self-monitoring and paedeia, which is roughly translated, "making yourself better at piano."
"You don't know how hard it is to raise kids," says someone whose main cultural influence in life was the Beatles. The fact that you will inevitably fail in creating Superman is not a reason not to try. Oh: I bet I know what you chose when you were 8.
The mistake is in thinking that misery and self-loathing are the "bad" things you are trying to get away from with Ambien and Abilify or drinking or therapy or whatever, but you have this completely backwards. Self-loathing is the defense against change, self-loathing is preferable to <mental work.> You choose misery so that nothing changes, and the Ambien and the drinking and the therapy placate the misery so that you can go on not changing. That's why when you look in the mirror and don't like what you see, you don't immediately crank out 30 pushups, you open a bag of chips. You don't even try, you only plan to try.The appearance of mental work, aka masturbation. The goal of your ego is not to change, but what you don't realize is that time is moving on regardless. Ian Anderson wrote a poem about this, you should study it carefully.
Coincidentally, four days after Amy told her story I heard Howard Stern railing about an uncle who liked to play golf. "It infuriated me that he never took a lesson, never tried to get better. He was happy just playing, he didn't care if he got any better. It made no sense to me. How can you enjoy something and not want to get better at it?" Answer: some people are happy with par. He isn't, which is why he succeeded. The retort is, "well, I don't want to have to improve on everything, some things I just want to mindlessly enjoy." I sympathize, but I also own a clock, and there are only 24hrs in a day. Look on how many of those hours go to true self-improvement vs. mindless enjoyment, and despair.
That hierarchy you learned-- and yes, it was learned in childhood-- applies toeverything, including addictions. Addiction may be biological, but no one ever claims that getting clean is biological. "When I hit 45, my testosterone levels fell which also lowered the dopaminergic activity in the reinforcement pathways of the brain, so I was able to get off dope." Wait, is that true? HA! No. It's a decision, made at that time in those circumstances. I know it's a hard decision, but like every other decision in life it is ultimately a binary one. Biology is pulling you towards 0, learning pulls you towards 1.
"All this happens at age 8?!" Think of how many years you've since practiced that hierarchy. "So after childhood, you're screwed? You can't change?" Oh, no, people change all the time, once they figure out how they're sabotaging themselves. Now it's your turn."
12 June 2012
You must read this in either the voice of Elrond or of Mr. Smith:
"Words offer the means to meaning, and for those who will listen, the enunciation of truth. And the truth is, there is something terribly wrong with this country, isn't there? Cruelty and injustice, intolerance and oppression. And where once you had the freedom to object, to think and speak as you saw fit, you now have censors and systems of surveillance coercing your conformity and soliciting your submission. How did this happen? Who's to blame? Well certainly there are those more responsible than others, and they will be held accountable, but again truth be told, if you're looking for the guilty, you need only look into a mirror. I know why you did it. I know you were afraid. Who wouldn't be? War, terror, disease. There were a myriad of problems which conspired to corrupt your reason and rob you of your common sense. Fear got the best of you."
-V for Vendetta
"Words offer the means to meaning, and for those who will listen, the enunciation of truth. And the truth is, there is something terribly wrong with this country, isn't there? Cruelty and injustice, intolerance and oppression. And where once you had the freedom to object, to think and speak as you saw fit, you now have censors and systems of surveillance coercing your conformity and soliciting your submission. How did this happen? Who's to blame? Well certainly there are those more responsible than others, and they will be held accountable, but again truth be told, if you're looking for the guilty, you need only look into a mirror. I know why you did it. I know you were afraid. Who wouldn't be? War, terror, disease. There were a myriad of problems which conspired to corrupt your reason and rob you of your common sense. Fear got the best of you."
-V for Vendetta
31 May 2012
Disney Princessing it up!
I am a Disney Princess. We've established this multiple times on several blogs, including this one. A few weeks ago, I was given the honor of helping a little male Carolina Wren build a nest in an orchid pot on my potting shelf on our porch. I was very excited. I stood by the bench and cut yarn for him to use. I would drop it on the top and he would grab it and work his very skilled talents into the pot. He also found some materials that he liked that were too heavy. He dragged them onto the porch to me so that I could lift them to the bench for him. It was awesome.
When he wooed his lady I helped him guard her. She laid five perfect eggs. Now they are five cheeping babies and I am about as proud as an extended bird relative can be. Here are our pictures.
When he wooed his lady I helped him guard her. She laid five perfect eggs. Now they are five cheeping babies and I am about as proud as an extended bird relative can be. Here are our pictures.
The nest that I helped build.
Five beaks!
This is Momma Wren. She won't get as close to me as Papa, but she lets me close to her babies and I take that as the compliment it is.
14 May 2012
Alfred, Lord Tennyson
The Poet's Mind
I
VEX not thou the poet's mind
With thy shallow wit:
Vex not thou the poet's mind;
For thou canst not fathom it.
Clear and bright it should be ever,
Flowing like a crystal river;
Bright as light, and clear as wind.
II
Dark-brow'd sophist, come not anear;
All the place is holy ground;
Hollow smile and frozen sneer
Come not here.
Holy water will I pour
Into every spicy flower
Of the laurel-shrubs that hedge it around.
The flowers would faint at your cruel cheer.
In your eye there is death,
There is frost in your breath
Which would blight the plants.
Where you stand you cannot hear
From the groves within
The wild-bird's din.
In the heart of the garden the merry bird chants.
It would fall to the ground if you came in.
In the middle leaps a fountain
Like sheet lightning,
Ever brightening
With a low melodious thunder;
All day and all night it is ever drawn
From the brain of the purple mountain
Which stands in the distance yonder.
It springs on a level of bowery lawn,
And the mountain draws it from heaven above,
And it sings a song of undying love;
And yet, tho' its voice be so clear and full,
You never would hear it, your ears are so dull;
So keep where you are; you are foul with sin;
It would shrink to the earth if you came in.
29 January 2012
Faith
Faith is knowing that God/the Universe/Life/Love/Pink Unicorns will help you heal if you just take a breath and stop fighting yourself.
That is all.
That is all.
07 January 2012
And the world makes a little more sense, if only briefly...
And finally, so that we are all educated:
Fluttershy is the pegasus on the left; Twilight Sparkle is the unicorn on the right. :)
21 October 2011
The cuteness!
Okay, first, we don't want kids. I don't like them, the BH is at best ambivalent about them, and the idea of pregnancy scares me more than giant man eating swans and snakes all wrapped up together and chasing me with tight enclosed spaces. I don't generally like children, though I may like them better than the adult versions. Depends on the day.
However, if for some horrible reason we ever spawn I shall dress it like a pirate. or a pixie, in its daily life. Cause well, chances are I wouldn't like it when it grew up. At least when it was wearing something like this and being all precocious I could like it for a little while.
However, if for some horrible reason we ever spawn I shall dress it like a pirate. or a pixie, in its daily life. Cause well, chances are I wouldn't like it when it grew up. At least when it was wearing something like this and being all precocious I could like it for a little while.
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