Self efficacy, working for your self, and the side effects.

What do I do next?

Well, it use to be that there was always someone to tell me that. A boss, supervisor, or teacher, that was there to give me direction, to give me a goal. But now that I have been self employed for nine months that out side guiding force is no longer there. I make the rules, I make the calls, I do the work.

This feels to me the largest challenge of being my own boss, building and keeping the self efficacy that it takes to make this work. There are days and weeks where I have so much decision fatigue that all I want to do is curl up with my cat and sleep. Nothing I've done before had really prepaid me for the need to make so many calls, to build my life from moment to moment. Because there is no boss here to tell me what I need to do next.

Now my life was not controlled by my employer by any means, but it had such a big impact in what I did I think because there was that fall back. That place I could go and have some one tell me what I needed to do and I would then do it.

It seems I spent most of my life doing that, having my folks tell me what to do, teachers, bosses, etc.... tell me what to do. Even when I was a manager and I was telling people what to do, the target was always set by some one else. It was this unspoken release of some level of responsibility that, in some way, I almost liked. I think for some people this is just a way of life, I worked with an other small biz owner that felt he had no control of his own company. He felt the customers controlled his every move and blamed the customers for his lack of a personal life.


I can see where he was coming from, not in that the customers controlled his life, but in how hard it can be to make all the calls, all the moves, all the decisions, all the time. It starts getting to you. It really starts dragging you down.

With this in mind I have started to try and set some rules up for my self, no work on the weekends if I can help it. If I'm feeling down, stop and zone out. If I'm feeling overwhelmed, take a walk, split fire wood, play video games, just doing something to relax my head and not have to make decisions.
But it feels like it still just hangs there, like a cloud that moves in and out of my personal sunlight, and I was the one that put it there.

I think the way to deal with this is to re-wire my brain. To "de-program" the way I dealt with things in the past and the build a new method of dealing with. To try to take those ideas of "what do I do now, Well I go ask the boss," and turn that into "what do I want/need to work on next?"
This has not been easy, and it has hit my depression quite hard. Feeling as if I'm pushing on an unmovable wall. But I just give my self a break, and then come back to it and keep chipping away at it, and hope I get some where.

The up shot of all of this is that I feel that the self efficacy I have been building has also effected my personal life. I've become more active in Ham radio again, I've started working on the projects that I half started then set a side, or the project ideas I've had for years. I have been feeling much more able to express my self in ways that I use to not because it might have effected work.
I feel like I have been much more energy to address emotional and spiritual issues that I have pushed aside for far too many years.
The down side is that this increased self efficacy as also caused problems, as I address issues with in my self, it causes stress with in my pod. It starts challenging other people because I find my self moving more and more out side the social rules that people are use to. Or by pushing things that are hard for me, it's pushing those same things for some with in my pod. The bad thing about this is it is with or with out them being ready for it. Which leaves me in a bit of a bad spot, I don't want to push the people I care about into a mental spot they don't want to be in. I also want to keep working on my self, so that I can keep working on my self. To keep working on my self efficacy not only for my personal life, also for my biz life as well.

Life is not easy for any one with in their own context. For those of us who wish to live out on the edge of what society calls normal, it is even harder because society is trying to push us back. And so we start this dance, in and out of the edges of the "rules", depending on how beat down we feel.
I feel that my journey into self employment is more than a career move, it is moving further past the edge of the "rules". It's pushing my self to grow and change, to become more of the person I haven't met. Because I have no idea where this will, what I will learn and who I will become.

As with all big changes, it has impacts we may not see and that we may not be able to control. I don't want to hurt others, but I also feel caring for my self is my first priority. And some times those come in direct conflict, and I'm still not sure how to deal with that.


So I'll just keep going, keep chipping away, and remind my loved ones to keep the safety gear on around me in the hope they don't get hurt. And maybe, just maybe, I'll be able to make this self employment thing work out as well. At least one can hope.

Pub

The ruble of the Pub,
The song of the town,
Where we rejoice in our presence,
rejoice in our own.

The joy of the Pub,
The joy of good drink and food,
The joy of community,
The joy of humanity.

The song of the Pub,
The song of the heart,
We sing together,
Together and apart.

In the Pub we are community,
In the Pub we are individuals,
In the Pub we celebrate our differences,
The Pub we celebrate humanity.

Mindfulness and finding beauty in the darkness.

What is mindfulness, I could define the word but that would not define the state of mind.
I could define that state of mind with in my own mind, but that would not give you any understanding of it.

I think this question may be better asked as "What leads to mindfulness?"
But asking this is like asking, "what is random?" *Ref: What Is Random? :Vsauce:

So let us ask, what is NOT mindful?


This question was inspired by and Andrew Huang song, Los Angeles ft. Ally Rhodes.
The song talks about the fast life of LA, people looking to become rich, famous, to find that road to the top of our societal ranking.
But as the song goes on, "What the hell am I doing drinking in LA?"
In seeking some kind of meaning among the overwhelming stream of information, the stories of success, and stories of "people who made it". Keep seeking, keep drinking, keep talking, but no one can tell you what it means "to make it". So keep seeking more stimulation, more highs, more, and more, and more!
"If you're not careful, you might disappear.
Into the soundscape of the walls of the city."

"Stream of consciousness nobody filters,
Got to learn to fit in with the killers."

To fit in, you must lose your self. To fit in you must find meaning in "stuff", stimulation, the newest fad, more money. But in seeking to find your self via external things you lose your self to flood of external "stuff".

This is what I think is opposite of mindfulness, losing your self to the out side world until you are but a cork bobbing about in the turbulent sea of "trends".

When this becomes a habit, a pattern that builds it's hard to break. It seems this is the only way to live because it is what you see. Forming an echo chamber based on self biasing, creating your prison, your own hell.

It's easy for someone to say, "Just stop", but it seems nothing in the world of the mind and habits are that easy.
So "What leads to mindfulness?"

I'm not sure of the answer to that.
I think it starts by looking inward, understanding self, and getting to a point where self trust is greater than... something, I'm not sure what.

The actions that lead to mindfulness are different for every one, I do a lot of reading from the Tao Te Ching, *An On Line Version*, I read a lot of  Buddhist texts and enjoy reading the teachings of the 14th Dalai Lama *His Web Site.*

But these are just actions, they are not the state of mind. That is up to you.

As a parting thought on this, I recall a moment when I was deep into a bout of depression, I was walking home from work on a very cold and snowy evening. As I walked home along the snow covered fields I watched the snow drift across the road the dead fields. I knew I was in depths of death here, the world was sleeping in a cold death around me. It hit me then that I was in the depths of a kind of death, a death of the mind. My mind was slow killing it's self, slow sinking into a darkness that I didn't even see. I walked out into the middle of one of the fields I walked by and just stood there, watching the snow drift by me in the darkness. There was a kind of dark beauty to that moment. Watching the cold stillness and letting me self feel that cold dark death filled stillness. That was one of the moments I felt I was very mindful. I saw beauty in death, I saw how amazing darkness is. I don't know every thing that lead to it.

I feel that working on that mindfulness helps me to prevent disappearing in the soundscape of the city, As Andrew's songs says. It seems to give me some kind of reference that keeps me from getting lost, it helps me to see that the world is an amazing place, even in the Coldest Darkness.

Thoughts on Gaza, Ferguson, and Being "Right"

What is a "human right"?
What reasons do we have for rising up?
What reason does the "state" have for rising up, to keep "order"?

The recent events in both Gaza and Ferguson has raised these questions in my mind and I'm sure in the minds of many others.
The idea that a group of people can be "sub-human", to deam a group or a species as "less than" an other group is to impose your ideas and judgement upon another person.

But the issue is that reality is created by the person, as in Gaza the politicians on both sides feel they are in the right. They use human life, both Israeli and  Palestinian, as token to prove that they are right. But to what end? Will they know who is right when the both groups are dead?

In Ferguson it seems a perpetuation of Jim Crow. Keeping the view that of those with colored skin are not human, but animals. What are they trying to prove, that they are right? To what end? When it is a town of dead will then prove who is right?

When ideas based in unrealistic expectations are held so close that they very idea that there are black people on the streets, gays getting married, Palestinians on "holy" ground, could bring your reality crashing down down. When some one must force their ideas upon others, treating them as if they are figments of that person mind, acting as if they are god. They will cause more conflict, more death, and that will cause more, and more, and more.

When will we stoping thinking we are always right?
When will someone speaking up be seen as something good, and not meet with a bullet?

Stop trying to prove you are right, because you may be proven DEAD RIGHT.

*The track that helped to inspire this post.*
https://soundcloud.com/thomasjackmusic/the-final-speech-thomas-jack

There is no need to fear the void.

  Our minds are the most infinite thing that we know of in the universe. They can take us beyond the edges of the known realms of our reality and be our worst nightmare. Entrapping us in a tangled web of  destructive thoughts, patterns, and filters. How is this? Why is it that our brains don't follow the seeming patterns like everything else in our world does? Well I think it's because it does follow those patterns, but because we are inside the pattern, the ghost in the shell as it were, we are not aware of it unless we put a lot of space in our thoughts between what we are and the idea of what we are.

          In physical systems entropy is randomness, it is when things try to reach a homogeneous state. Everything is the same.... nothing different. I think that the entropy of the mind is a state like this that is reached via entrapping patterns. We get in a rut, we don't trust ourselves, we feel like all those people out side of us have it better, are doing better. The feeling of inequality builds and builds, and builds, until we have to bring it to some equilibrium. This thing feel, I call depression. The black hole that stands between you and the outside world that seems to do it's best to draw you into a state in which there is no return. This void is void in it's truest state, there is nothing there. It slowly pulls you apart until you are just a shell, no ghost left.

          But how do you see this, if you are exposed to this void throughout your whole life. If you are fighting to be your self against the inward push of a destructive, belittling, wants to use your emotions to turn you into a good little consumer, society how do you see the void.

For me it was putting space between me and the idea of me. By giving my self space, mentally and physically, between the entropy in my mind and the inward push of life around me. With that time to myself  I was able to feel ok with who I am. To allow the people who cared about me and showed me that care in a constructive way into my life. I was also able to push out those who were not constructive to my life.

But to do this I had to break my self down, I had to jump into the void so I could understand it. 

So that I would not get lost in void, to get scare of the void and become lost in fear. I want to understand the void, I want to know that darkness, to have it wrap me up and fill me. Because in knowing something, you are no longer afraid of it. In knowing the darkness I can move forward through it. By applying my understanding it is no longer entropy, trying to break me down. But a new, undiscovered frontier of my own mind. Ready for me to explore and to find my self a new.

            No one knows everything about you or anything else. I feel the biggest trap is to stop learning about yourself. To think that it is over and there is nothing more to find. I feel this is what starts mental entropy. You, just like the universe, are constantly changing, never static. To delude yourself that you are static is to invite the fear of the void into you, to start the destruction of your own mind. 

But you are also your self, you are not other people. Your are not at their whim of thought or action. They don't know better than you, they know differently then you. In this a responsibility to balance comes to play. A responsibility to listen to your own needs, your own thoughts and feelings. You are not part of a machine in which you can be replaced. You some one who as the ability to choice to live. Either via action, or lack of action.  

Random:

           I'm sitting at the pub in the next "town" east of me. The power is out at home because of a wind storm and one of my neighbors tress, my house is running on battery backup now.
Sitting in the dark with my Feline companion reminds me of how empowered I am. The fact that I have the know how, the tools, and the will to do something about a lack of Mains power is some what, Surprising in our society.
I remember in Ice storm, I think it was 1996, when my parents house was out of power for about 2 weeks in the middle of February. It was a cold spell, a warm spell, then a cold spell. There was about 2 to 3 inches of ice on every thing. It took down trees, powers lines, well a lot of stuff.  Thousands of people where with out power and scared shitless. But not my family, we took it as a something fun. We cooked dinner on the fireplace, took hot bucket baths, had kerosene lights, and my brother rigged up a battery powered TV. I remember that time as all kinds of fun because it was like a post apocalyptic kind of thing. I guess I'm wired that way. When I found out how scared other people where, to the point of breaking down from what I heard, I was rather surprised. I wondered what would happen if it was worse, if all of those systems we depend on just slowly broke down and no one fixed them? What then?

So in that I count my self blessed that I know now to make it all  work, one way or the other. I count my self lucky that I grew up "strange" and found this kind of thing fun. If for no other reason because I can help those who don't know how, because I'll have my shit taken care of.

There is no such thing as a "New Beginning"

      I find myself becoming less and less a fan of the idea of reinventing yourself. Going some place else, breaking up, moving out, finding a new job, getting a new style, Etc, etc, etc. This idea really bugs me because it is based on the assumption that we are static. It operates with the "foundation" that we set our identity and it remains that way time immemorial. The problem with this view is the idea that something is static, that it will remain the same for all time. This can not occur because of Entropy, the force in the world that tries to make the universe homogeneous in its energy. This homogeneous state becomes chaos, because all information is spread out evenly and randomly over a given area. If the energy was in a pattern, it would no longer be homogeneous. Given this, our bodies, rocks, food, everything around us is trying to collapse into a lower state of energy. But, Emergence then happens, things around this breaking down object take advantage of it and create new things. Just like the sugars in rotting fruit keep breaking down and get to a point in which we can not eat it. But the mold, yeast and insects around it will take this and use it to build something useful to them. We use this as well, breaking things down by chewing and hydrochloric acid in our stomachs and using the leftover part to build our bodys. This is happen all the time around you and in you. So how is it that this idea of something static could come about? Because you don't see the change.

It could be a said that is a distortion in our views based on our perceived temporal scale. We see things based on the days, hours, minutes, seconds. How clearly do you remember a minute ago, an hour, a day, a week, a year? Unless you have photographic memory and are lacking stress you will most likely a have a harder and harder time remembering the further and further back you try to remember. Our memories are what we are able to base our relative measure of time off of. Remembering a what has happened and putting some kind of unit of measure to it gives us some kind of reference to what would otherwise just be memories that didn't have much context. But it's this context that gives us a framework, and with this framework we have a sense of time, of progression. So why the view of being static? I think it's because we lose our framework and are use to our self. So we don't see the small changes. I also think that most people are not paying attention to self  changes as much as external changes. So it's easy to miss the tiny acts of entropy changing us every day.

So why new Beginnings? I have a feeling new beginnings come from a "lack" of entropy in our life. One can't stop the entropy of their body and things around them, but they can try to stop it in they way they live life. Patterns form, they become the only thing you know and the thing that gives you security in life. The idea that nothing else is certain in the world other than your pattern, this can be a comforting thing when faced with the idea of "scary chaos." But how certain is it? Chaos/entropy with always creep back in to break it down, and if you build the expectation in your mind that it will be static what will happen when it breaks? You feel like it has failed, like it's time for a new beginning. The the loop starts all over again, something brings you down, you build a pattern to feel secure in your self, entropy breaks the pattern and you have a new beginning. So when will entropy break that pattern??

I would guess that for some, death would break it as they never get out of it. And if they don't want to break out of it that's ok, It's their life to live. But what if you want to get out of it? Then don't do it to start it. How do you do that? Well that is for another post.