Falling in Love

I wonder if I can anymore.
Falling, that is.

Hmm.

It took me quite some time to fall in love the first time

But, I feel a lil' odd about it.
Its funny that sometimes I feel as though I should be in love.
The opportunity abounds.
and yet
There is something unbalanced about it.
I remember once my sister saying after being in love
she mediated herself into mild content
for she was suspicious of happiness
for she had come to know it eventually came with a price

Worrying about being caged can become its own prison

Just as breaking habits can become a terrible one itself.

I would hate to control someone

or be controlled

I realized some time ago that one of my biggest fears was being or having "An Ol' ball n' chain"
And I worry most about  muting the person I adore. 
I want to enrich not put out someones life fires and plans and desires.


I cannot picture the safe space
where I would be conivinced
love was a good idea.

I shall not have my wings clipped
I feel too rational for it. Can you be adult in mind about love? 
Could it then ever be called falling? Or feel like falling? 
Like that absurd all-consuming flame i remember from adolescence?.

But does this fierce indepedance mean I shall never be known?
Will I protect that intimate part of myself to a fault?
I am glad I am not easy about such things,
but it does make me wonder.
Perhaps I may stumble upon it on my path.
A stumble not a fall.
Equilibrium found?

Hmm.

My heart is a wee bit aflame though.

Conteded in some sort of blessed unrest

a long embrace

a comforting prod.

Let it be known.

I am a coward in matters of love for I have no patience for those who wont move when push comes to shove

But when I am invunerable How fragile I am and when I am intolerable who can tell me I am

and if I am so strong who is strong enough to take my hand?

If I have my own plans.

Then where has my spark gone? Can I hear the wind?

And if fortune falls in my favour, is it me? Is it me? Is it me? Is it me?

Remember: The Heart in Your MInd.

It makes sense to be kind.

It makes sense to be kind.

Equilibrium1

 What is a person to society and vice versa? 

"That 'when we walk, we know that we are walking, when we stand we know that we are standing.' It is that consciousness that permits a form of progress.'

 I have been hanging out with a beautiful man who seems to have a hard time understanding himself as a contributor to society, or as a good person for that matter because he thinks himself entirely self-centred. Doing everything to serve himself.
Because he is too busy trying to make the best of who he is to be distracted with the greater good.
Isn't that, often, the best thing you can do for the greater good?
But you still need to feel momentum and fire---
and humans as closed systems, or isolated individuals
are not not the best fostered creatures for themselves or the rest.
It is an exhausting practice.

I read an old journal of mine recently where I wrote (in grade nine):
Life goal:
Be a net gain for The Universe.

I think sometimes we often get stuck like this. Either wary that we need to do more more more outside of ourselves that we forget to work on what we like about ourselves.
Or we grow wary that focusing on greater goods will erase us or misdirect what we really want and therefore isolate ourselves from feeling real satisfaction.

 But I still strive for Greatness.
 I just never want to get lost in it. To miss out because I focus on gaining.
But without it, we often don't really know our own direction or cannot be really motivated to claim it. We cannot feel purpose in such a pronounced way, we seek personal perfection instead of knowing what is good enough to help the world and ourselves is often good enough to fuel us for a long long time.

"The problem seems to be that our talents and characteristics drive us more than we drive them. We encourage or develop them or deny and frustrate them. Either way, we are serving what exists within us-- a form of personal reality or personal certainty..."


And to me, being a good person in incredibly self-centred and self serving. Is it not? I mean, if you focus on empty ends and never get affirming feedback you can never actually wholly capitalize on your own life or plug into you offer the world and vice versa

"...There is nothing odd or strange about this; nothing wrong. As I've said, we need these certainties. They are our primary reality. And society needs these contributions from us. It is good to be a successful salesman or writer. the wings need to hold firm on the planes we build for others to fly in. We need to be sung to."

I more or less said this to him:
"Any sense of power or powerlessness we have revolves around whether we believe we have the qualities with which we can have some effect on our destinies and on that of our society--no one great life-directing quality, but a whole range of them, all of equal importance, each with different roles. these permit us to change ourselves from passive beings to humans."

I think it is mildly demeaning that you say you are motivated solely by self-interests. Especially since you could not exist without society. Humans are born dependent on such things, on greater society otherwise(like other mammals) we would be born stronger, more mobile and independent. Also, that insulting thought is the root of many things socially painful-- the assumption that those ads, that consuming that being self-centred, all-consuming soulless gluttons is some sort of answer. How you typify your own wants, might be different, but your seeking without any thought of higher purpose or grander purpose than yourself is just as vacant in its destination as what a mach3 razor presents itself as offering your destiny unless you tap into all that you are giving... and recognizing yourself as a giver, or part of that which surrounds yee and made you you.pretending as though it appears as a closed system, though I am fairly certain you rationally think otherwise, is a foreign tale to me.

How can you follow through on your logic this way?
You have Aidos and Dike my dear, otherwise you would not survive. Know that you use them, and use them knowingly! Or at least feel not that you are a fraud, or fooling. Because it is but you yourself who is made a fool by habituating such a practice. You are more than just skill and self. You are quality and virtue. You are the quite lovable, nurturing, contributing you.

 So plug in!

Something talked about in Equilibrium is Plato's idea of Zeus telling Hermes to give human kind Aidos and Dike.
I want to talk about that more next time.

------------------------------- 

So, for a long time people had told me I was quoting John Raulston Saul and I would retort "I have never read JRS" and that would be the end of that. I am mid-read of Equilibrium, my first book in a long long while, and I am perpetually surprised by how much it echoes my mind. Now I am wary to keep reading, because in the future I may be quoting JRS when I mean to be just being myself. Dang.

This entry was heavily quoting and referencing the first pages of On Equilibrium 

The reason this post is titled "Equilibrium1" is because I assume I shall touch back on what reading has done to my mind.

---------------------------------------------

Plan Be

 

 Sweet illustrious New Year

I am absurdly privileged.

I am excited to do right by the world

And I have a good feeling

About this one

"
Get this in mind early: We never grow up.
"
 

Some call the way the world works

"The Goldilocks Paradigm."

Not too hot, not too cold. Just right.

Not too big, not too small. Just right.

A precise balance
(I think this ignores that she did steal porridge
but at least she knew what she wanted, I suppose)

"
Avoid problems, and you'll never be the one who overcame them.
"

Sometimes I gravitate towards goodness 

and live in its extremes
So I seek problems so I might solve them
My pathology and my disposition encourage such a thing.
I seek to balance it all out

I love arguments and hearing I am wrong the morbidly beautiful, mortality, the ugly, the gross
the surly, because these are the ways I can feel my growing and know that I am knowing

Somewhat similarly in love,

I don't like fellas too hot

(so that I might imagine them deluded about who I am)

so I seek a caring coldness
Because I think it a better teacher

But really, I do want to live a lovely balance

Because otherwise I cannot give all I can give

And I cannot feel my rhythms which animate me
Cannot be properly called out
and called on my shenanigans
It is no good making out the problems others have with you as their problems
even if they are?
everyone's reality is of consequence


"
Allow the world to live as it chooses, and allow yourself to live as you choose.
"

I feel (and perhaps sometimes I pretend) everything is a mirror, and inherently a part of myself

But sometimes I forget to check for who I am
and recognize my own choices

In the Circle Game

I want to break

these bones, your prisoning rhythms

            (winter,

            summer)

all the glass cases,

erase all maps,

crack the protecting

eggshell of your turning

singing children:

I want the circle

broken.

Methinks, we all tell ourselves stories of our lives

because we all see things differently, and it is hard to deny everyone's reality is of consequence

Certainly to themselves. and if they are actors in the world then they are of consequence to us all

but it is all our own fiction we are telling ourselves and the world

and sometimes we forget to own our own fiction

That we are our writers

(Who do I want to be? Ultimately, how would I desire to be? Did that just happen?)

and for a wee while there not only did I not own my own fiction

I did not see the difference between me and the mirror

felt trapped, that something wrote me

rather than honoring my ability to respond

and did not even like the story I was telling myself








 "
Here is the test to find whether your mission on Earth is finished: if you're alive, it isn't.
"

It is a beautiful freeing thing

when you remember to choose life.

Right now I am obsessed with Bees.

 

It is so so interesting that the creatures only have one method of defense

and it rips their guts out

so they are not in any way defending themselves, 

they are defending the hive.

When I was a kid I always used bees dancing as proof of the divine.

I have been thinking
About being a conduit
About what it means to feel the divine
and yourself
and other people
always.
And how to best do it without being known as crazy
and without stopping hearing the wind
or negating the value of my dreams


(Polar Dip 2011)


And how to write a story
that is the best story
The one I have inside me
a balanced story
sensible enough that
the moral might be easily applied and internalized for those who read it
and I might still be bettered for it
and feel blessed and satisfied in watching its ripples
and all facets of what might be
from who I have been

And still telling whole truth.
that I might tell
.

My first dream of the New Year that I can remember is
sailing with David Crosby

by little islands
outside of Venezeula
"Sometimes the music is strong enough... it pulls out of us a better self" -David Crosby

I feel so free.
So aware of illusions
and happy for their existence
and their meaningful meaninglessness



"
I gave my life to become the person I am right now. Was it worth it?

"


Abosolutely.

 I am going to go see the river man.

New Woman

 

I feel like a bit of a new woman.

I am not sure why, nor why these rhythms strike me but... I am so happy!

And awake.

I feel as though I was living in a dreamland

trapped in my own illusions

Incredibly impractical and self-defeating

I was strangely hard on myself and lethargic

and felt somewhat heartless and exhaustively unaccomplished

and I knowingly forgot my virtues

and those steps to to solve my self-made problems

and now I feel I can afford the privilege of taking care of myself.

Strange, eh?

Whether this is a big cycle or a lil' cycle I am happy it exists

I just watched She-ra and Heman's Christmas special and am just starting Alf's Christmas special.

Allllright.

What is this blog for?

You know, I had forgotten what this blog was for.

Why I thought Interconnectivist was important

 It has become a tool o' chronicling my strange travels

an electronic journal, if you will... 

but I want to talk about zee connections.

and explain what it is I see!

And I started thinking about Action Potential

                

and my lovely friend Sophia's Blog

I think it

is 

time 

to get productive.

Couples

A friend said to me today
You must be pretty intimidating to boys because you are so full
and
It must take a particular skill set to be with you
hmmm...
I wonder if anyone is up for the challenge?
Or if it is even true?
Or if I even want to be paired?
Or if I can avoid being afraid to love or to be attatched to someone. My most pronounced cowardice.
When I care about someone my guts tell me similutaneously to run away and to stay forever
And also... I rarely rarely care about someone's like that. So it is uncomfortable.
Though, I seek discomfort, because it indicates I'm learning.
What are my guts saying?
What am I learning?






 
Perhaps I will just follow my guts:

To whom it may concern...

To Whom it may concern;

I have been lucky to have never been without work whenever I looked for it. The last time I went to western Canada to find seasonal work at a fair wage, though, I vowed that I would make my living in Nova Scotia from now on. In part because I think it is unfortunate to reinforce the belief that Eastern Canadians have to leave their homes to make decent money, but also because I love and know this place the most because it is my home. The only difference in my job search this time was that I refused to work at something I didn’t love, that didn’t make me a better person, didn’t challenge me and did not help the greater good. I wanted to work in a way that was beneficial to the community and helped foster all those things I love about the future of the place where I am from. I wanted to work in Nova Scotia in a field which developed the skills I needed to succeed, was innovative, payed me enough to live and was aligned closely to my principals and values. I was not surprised to find that there was plenty of work in the field of Community Development, but there was very little money.

Over the past few years, I have found my passions in life. I used to feel somewhat lathargic and unmotivated about my life plans and practices, but now I find my work animates and inspires me at every turn so that I have seemingly limitless energy. After going both University & College, working in various fields while volunteering as much as was physically possible, I became quite adamant about community-based and service learning. I had found the missing piece to my own education: putting what you learn into practice. I started to develop leadership programs with the Halifax Regional School Board, Centre for Entrepreneurship Education & Development, Dalhousie and others to help enrich our education systems to be more empowering to youth, to help kids and young adults get hands on experience and create rewards systems for their work in community development. This work was amazingly satisfying, because it redressed social issues from being what seemed to make life difficult into a perfect chance to develop personal skills,  cultivate meaning, take action and be proud of ones work. I developed a special interest in the role of business and entrepreneurial skills as a tool to help people manage and plan how to apply their passions while remedying some of the challenges in society. While teaching one of my sessions, on a fully volunteer basis, I realized that I was not practicing what I had set out to teach: I was teaching youth to live their dreams and address community issues with entrepreneurial know-how, and yet I was volunteering and trying to find ways to supplement my volunteer income through less meaningful work that did not suit my abilities or who I wanted to grow into. So, after some hefty community research, I set off on an entrepreneurial path.

I applied for Self Employment Benefits program through Employment Insurance, participated as a competitor in an Enterprise Atlantic contest and learned as much as I could about how the realm of business and the spirit of enterprise is beneficial to Nova Scotia and to me. I was told that my business ideas and models were amazing, innovative and well thought out. I was told my community projects were needed in our communities, but I needed to be more concerned with profit and creating capitol and that I did not quite fit into the current model of business or many support programs.

I am quite blessed to be someone who has multiple interests and aptitudes, but there is nothing I love so much as my home, its communities and people. I want to live and work here, and think that we can embody a truly innovative and sustainable model with our economy and our people. Over time, I have come to feel like we need to make more room for an economy that thrives on community development and alternative education, and I want to help create jobs outside of charitable organizations and social welfare instituions so that those who are ethical and community-centred can generate an income without depleting government funds or operating wholly separate from business.  We deserve to use the wealth of human potential we have in our amazingly educated capitol, and use these in tandem with entrepreneurials skills so that we might use them most effectively.

I believe that social enterprise and education is part of the future legacy of Nova Scotian identity, and I think that generating awareness and living by example is what I should do with my life. I want to develop the skills, the research, the connections and the knowledge to be business savvy and a community resource simultaneously, and I want to help other Nova Scotians do the same. I would take every chance to embody the ethically, sustainably employed vision I have for this province and try to better myself and the greater community at every turn and I will not be giving up anytime soon.

Can you help me create my job and my Nova Scotia?

Thanks for your time,

Julia M. Feltham

Celibacy

Since I was young I have had non-catholic inklings and desires about being a nun, about harnessing the divine powers of an independant, chaste woman. And yet here I am: Julia.

Certainly not a nun, or catholic. But there is something to be said for being wedded to God and/or the energy that you can keep or apply to the world when you are not invested in mating as a rule, or in the very least not invested in reflecting on why we participate in our sexual desires and acts. How come we have become somewhat unthinking in our reproductive activities? I am so enriched by breaking from cycles of desire. It becomes easier to write music often, to self reflect, to operate on a higher level... and historically, through nuns and beyond, it was used as a powerful tool for ladies, and meant you could better speak for yourself and for the people because you were untainted and holy. Because you wouldn't submit to your desires.

Is it the opposite now? Is chastity seen not as a virtue but an affliction? I feel Chastity is not seen as a productive social tool, and would make one an outcast now... so hard to relate to, so urecognized in popular culture. People who are cellibut are thought of as those who simply can't get some. Have the chaste become mythic now? Pegged as insane, deprived, misguided? Part of me feels judged as an old-lady type just for writing this, but I don't think 'abstaining' should be just for right-wing and repressive sorts. And, as it is, they are undiscussed, undervalued Pariahs. Sure, young virgins are covetted sexually, and those who play hard-to-get might win some soial points in the end : But what ever happened to the legitimacy of Cellibacy?

These are the top hits for nun in google images: