creating what i haven’t lived
I have not lived much of my life; for the most part, I have simply been carried along by circumstances. This has not been a good thing. What good has happened has been more by luck, or the compassion of others, than my own agency. I have been far more fortunate than skilled.
And that luck did not hold up. Not with anxiety and depression ever lurking to take me down.
This website represents, or re-presents, my attempt here in 2020 to live my life with intention. One year ago, I began a mindfulness meditation practice, and it has done me a world of good. Today, I have a new understanding about how I want to live my life, of how I intend to create my life. This is an experiment in self-creation through the things I love to do and the things that are meaningful to me.
carpe bucko
scratching the itch
Mindfulness is about learning to focus attention purposefully, not like a dog dragged around by a leash. Learning to be with a small irritation like an itch is an unpleasant but useful way to learn how to also be with anxiety, fear, and such. The funny thing is: it works!
carpe bucko
stop and see the change
Mental healthiness isn’t a quick project. It can happen so slowly, you don’t even know you’re doing it.
carpe bucko
entropy can wait
Entropy: the law of the universe that says energy is constantly loss and everything falls apart. Pretty much summarizes depression, too – but it doesn’t have to be. We can put off entropy, not forever but long enough for a good life.
carpe bucko
distraction
Mindfulness meditation involves a lot of being unmindfully distracted. It’s a normal thing. The key isn’t to stop being distracted but to acknowledge when it happens and return attention where you intend it to be. Gently, kindly.
politics
When do we panic?
Panic feels like it’s the right way to feel at times, especially in this god-awful year of 2020. Panic, however, is never the right choice, unless failure and doom are your goals. Not submitting to panic means finding another way to cope.
politics
Oregon Vote-by-mail: why it works
Oregon pioneered Vote-by-Mail. After a few cycles, it worked so well that we made it the only way for Oregonians to vote. (Well, you can visit your county elections division and cast a ballot; I did that once when I’d move and my ballot didn’t catch up with
politics
ideology, compassion, self
Telling people like trump and Fox News to go to hell is defensible; their actions are inhumane and purposefully so. But their supporters and viewers? Tens of millions of Americans who have nothing to gain and so much to lose – they can go to hell? This is a difficult question.
politics
normal は、さよなら
We’ve lived with a toxic “normal” for centuries. It hasn’t done us a lot of good. Now we face multiple threats to our existence. Thanks, normal.
carpe bucko
the moon
John Green, on discovering the moon: I suppose I’d known moonlight existed, but somehow I had made it to adulthood without ever having a personal experience of it. And there was the world, lit by something that cannot shine light but still finds a way to share light. I
politics
compassion: as simple as life itself
What we are seeing in the current Black Lives Matter movement is a shift towards compassion, individually and collectively.
politics
Failures of liberalism: humans
Liberalism, as a political philosophy, is one of the best of human inventions. The problem has always been that it has had to be implemented by humans, and that means its imperfections will eventually surface and, unless sufficient steps are taken to address the resultant problems, the programs – and the
carpe bucko
despite that….
Life is hard, then you die. So what? Man up & deal with it.
If only it were that easy.
carpe bucko
willingness and perseverance
Running away and hiding is, of course, the exact opposite of willingness and perseverance.
carpe bucko
value adding
It’s not that I don’t have any values; I am simply unable to define them. Which means, for all practical purposes, I don’t have any functional values. This is a problem. Because I have been able to get consistent long-term mental health care through the VA, meeting
japanese
the fun of katakana
I love the Japanese language for many reasons. Part of it no doubt stems from the weird way my brain works, while some is an appreciation for the way they’ve resolved certain language issues. Japanese does not have an alphabet in the way English does; no vowels (a, e,