In Four Years' Time

I had an inadvertently intense over-coffee conversation this week. Not only did it almost make me late for class, but it made me completely unprepared to sit in class. Yes, how could I sit there and blink and nod and pay attention when I really needed to be sitting under a tree, doing my best Buddha impression while trying to process the heaviness of information had had just been bestowed on me? Bestowed by someone pretty damn qualified, to say the least.

It's been a pensive couple of months, actually a pensive year.

It's been a hard year, hard year for love

Some really good conversations have come out of it, and I think the underlying question that we all probe at is this:

How can we define self-actualization for ourselves, and what life events have influenced us to settle upon that particular definition?

On that subject, I will leave you with 2 pearls of wisdom that are both in code.

1) Flowers grow from shit.
2) You are probably a lot stronger than you think, and if you think you're weak, maybe you're lucky!

The implications of changing your mind in a world without time travel.

Today on the list of things that crowd my brain instead of null pointer references and expression trees is the validity of a question you can ask.

Rilke said that you should live the questions, and eventually live your way into the answer.

But what if one day you realize* that you weren't asking the right questions all along?
(*By "realize" here I can only mean decide. So no, I don't come to some big realization that the answers and goals I have been so far living towards are somehow wrong. I simply decide to change my mind. After all, a girl can change her mind even more often than she changes her shoes, whose supply is not infinite, and you will eventually have to come across a pair you have already worn. No, changing your mind is free, especially if it is that time of the month, or if that time of the month is looming sometime in the vague future, or it if you are stressed, or if it is Tuesday - you catch my drift.)

So you decide one day that the questions you have been trying to answer weren't the right questions to ask after all. Is there a way to go back, retroactively, and live your way into an answer you were never aiming for?

I still believe that when you ask a question, at some point you will come to realize that you have had the answer all along. But I think that comes from struggling with that question, being open to cues in your environment that would help you answer that question, and structuring your choices based on who you were at the time. Then, if, putting it bluntly, you decide that you have made a mistake, by asking one "what if" question and attempting to live your way into that answer, when really, you should have been asking, "what if NOT," there is NO way to go back and relive that alternate path!

Because you can really only project "what if" questions into the future, and after you live it, realize that it is the only way it could have been. That is the only way to handle "what if'ing" without being extremely, unnecessarily cruel to yourself. OF COURSE it couldn't have been different, if it is the way it is! If things were different, nothing would be the way that it is now, so NOTHING could have been different.

Therefore, if you think that you asked an incorrect question in the past, all you can really do is decide which question you want to project into the future. 

On growing up.

I had a sort of mental health day today. It went like skipping class so I could attend to the ten much more pressing things I had to do that were continually put off in favor of problem sets that had actual DEADLINES. Oh, priorities. I wanted to clear my to-do list but realized that the really pressing things weren't even on the whiteboard because I haven't had time to put them down. Well, it's done now!

Anyway, a relaxing morning and bike-free afternoon is putting me in a thoughtful mood. I am watching people around me make the transition to adulthood in a way that feels so alien and light years away, yet the fact that people my age are having these profound milestones with careers and families means that at some point, it is waiting for me too. Maybe that is what being an adult is - being continuously thrown off equilibrium as the people in your life disperse more and more with respect to where they are in their lives. (I am totally picturing a spreading plume when I write the word disperse.) Anyway, while I can delay growing up by living in a grad dorm and avoiding children and gainful employment, I thought that I would be older when I KNEW other people who were "adults."

But let's step back and take a look at that word for a minute. There are so many times this year when I had the sinking realization that this is it,

I am more or less on my own,
I have been doing the feeding myself and cleaning up after myself, making good life decisions (debatable), and not being a total shit show for a few years now. I've had laundry, bills, chores, to-do lists, safe and dangerous situations to choose between, vitamins to take and sunscreen to apply. Yet despite that fact, I am still a complete and utter SHIT SHOW.

But guess what?! So is everyone else. That's right, everyone who is doing this in-your-20's thing doesn't have a single clue. And I'm starting to understand that it doesn't really get better in your 30's either. No, there is no milestone in life when suddenly, you wake up on top of your shit.

When I was in grade school (ok, and college), being 20 sounded so OLD. There were things I put off thinking about because I knew I would have to think about them "in my 20's." Wearing business professional clothes. Worrying about wrinkles. Not painting your nails different colors. But none of that happened!

Let me reiterate.

Nobody around us has a single clue.

YOU NEVER REALLY FIGURE IT OUT. Well, maybe your whole life will flash before you until you die, but until then, I am never going to wake up one morning with a career, family, and picket fence lined up and with the knowledge that this is the life I have been working towards.

No, like Rilke said, you spend your whole way living the questions, hoping that someday, you will live your way into the answers.

This book will change your life even if you don't let it.
(Side note: I stumbled upon it in a small shop in New Hope, PA, on a sunny day when I planned neither to buy a prom dress or be introduced to a whole new world of poetry, introspection, and revelation. Every time I read this book, I learn something new about life and myself.)

Except you never get the answers in real time! But every once in a while, you look back and realize that YOU HAD THE ANSWERS ALL ALONG, just not in a way that you could have processed or understood at that time.

I remember struggling with a really tough life decision a couple of years ago, calling my mom, and her saying "I think you already have all the information that you need to make this decision. You just need to think about it."

This freaks me out because we are so profoundly underestimating our potential. Whatever answers you need, whatever you are struggling to extract from life, you already possess.  It's kind of like.. you can see something coming, but only in retrospect. When you look back, all those silly things that weren't signs and didn't mean anything are suddenly signs to whatever event followed. So I wonder if they really exist, or if our brain constructs them after the fact? Kind of like a dream that your brain paints right before you wake up to illustrate a noise that you hear when waking up.

*~*~*~*~*

I need to stop right now and conserve whatever brain power remains to find out why my dimensionless time data is not matching the scale of the Fischer function.

In summary:
-All adults are shit shows
-You never figure anything out.
-But that's only because you already know everything (you just can't use it at the time.)

Good night!!!

I've been here before.

Almost exactly 6 years ago. When running stops being a sport, a way to see the world, take a break, get away, and becomes something so much MORE:

Suddenly it's a tangible manifestation of the Earth's love for you through your contact with the dirt.
And I loved you every mile you drove away.
Your sneakers are actually hugging you through your feet.

But this time around there is nothing painful, no bruised knees, no sacrifices, no give-and-take that I have to endure when negotiating my daily run.
(knockonwood)

Thank you feet, thank you songs coming on the iPod at just the right time, thank you two extra miles that flew by. Maybe I will run a marathon this week (just not all in one day!)

So tonight, we are young.

Ohh hey I've been back in the States for exactly 6 months. In 4 days, the alleged "golden year" is coming to a close and I can honestly say it has probably been the best so far. I spent 50% of it traveling the world to come back to a whirlwind of grad school acceptances, visiting friends, exploring America's national parks, and settling down for a new beginning in San Francisco.

On the plane flying back to the States, I made a list of the things I did while traveling. It is a ridiculous, hilarious list, more full of bucket to-do's and funny once-in-a-lifetime opportunities than concrete realizations of wisdom (that is what my Corbett writings were devoted to, burning the midnight oil with Tulsi and looking back on the first part of the experience.) It would be interesting to make a list of new events that entered my life over the past 6 months, then compare the two lists. Sometimes I feel like life has only been more ridiculous in San Francisco, when I came back to feeling "in my element" and embracing my role as the kind of person that stuff just HAPPENS to, you know?

And even though I have been back in the States just as long as I was abroad, I am STILL uncovering details of how the trip has changed me. All good, so far!

I feel so blessed to realize how precious, good, and important something is even while I am living it. Never again will life be so wide open and full of opportunities, waiting to be shaped and begging to be enjoyed like an endless waterfall on a scorching hot desert day.

On the radio, we heard November rain.

Ohh hey blog. There is something about throwing a full-time job in the mix that results in having zero time to write.

Not the most important thing that's happened is.. I am still realizing how profoundly changed I came back from my 6-month stint out of the country. I am observing character traits in myself that I have to work on toning down, while before I left, I lacked these character traits completely and wanted to work to develop them.

For example:
-Patience
-Being more open, fair to people, generous with my feelings
-Ability to be busy without being exhausted
-But at the same time.. doing something MEANINGFULLY useless with your free time.

I guess because I have significantly less free time (more or less working four jobs, thank goodness three of them don't add up to any significant hours), any me time I have is just so much more energizing because I have to draw the same benefits from it.

Like hanging out on the floor right now, listening to Mademoiselle Spektor on repeat, drinking a Thursday beer and not really thinking about packing for Tahoe. About getting into the parking lot at 11 PM and hiking in 2 miles to an appropriate campsite spot..
Yep, adventures only get better when you are busier.

So this is actually the first time I worked in an office full time. Before it was all lab or the silly pool. I kind of love it. For anyone who knows about my intense love affair with the great out of doors, this should be surprising. But it's so much more stable and safe than the POOL. And apparently, I am fine with barely moving before 2 PM. If you stay in your PJ's until 2, that is lazy. If you sit at your desk doing work, that is dedication. (Ohh hey study habit insight for grad school.)

But it's good to keep in mind that there is a huge, incredible, amazing world out there that is so much more REAL than your cubicle, people with more tangible problems, living more satisfying lives, and everything you do for most desk jobs is kind of.. not real. A made up virtual religion like math.

I guess that is motivation to do something that is "real" long term. No dropping things off clouds for me?

Lazy Friday Musings of a Fellow San Franciscan

Today is probably the most pathetic excuse for a summer day since I moved here. Yeah mid July. According to the weather prediction, it is 61 (even though the high is 57), and I think I have to subtract at least 4 degrees to account for the freezing wind that constantly blows down my street, assaulting my non-insulated apartment.  Either way, for a former New Englander it is pathetic that I wore my long spandex bottoms and a fleece (!) lined spandex top when I went for my run. I brought that top exclusively for snow camping trips, and it is the second time I wore it running. If this was New Hampshire and 20 degrees colder, I would be reveling in the fact that it is sub freezing and be sporting shorts and a T-shirt for my run.

Despite the fact that all I wanted to do was curl up in bed and cuddle with a nalgene of boiled water (I REFUSE to turn on the heat in the middle of the day on July 13! I will not be defeated!), I actually had such a wonderful run bobbing along to Russian pop that I ventured past the Presidio St. underpass bridge for the first time since I moved here. That is, excluding any drunk runs I went on, possibly in the dark, when I got hopelessly lost and did not know when I was, but I don't remember those/they don't count.

If you have ever driven with me, you know the motivating power of really good Russian pop (and "good" in this sentence can only mean "bad.")

Now I am sitting in the lovely Velo Rouge Cafe on the corner that serves delicious chai, but that has a hopelessly horrible vibe if you are trying to get any real work done. Seeing as how it's Friday and I have probably had the most pathetic workweek, I decided that I can dedicate the rest of my afternoon to blogging instead of pretending that I am going to solve this fluid mechanics problem before my hair turns gray.

It's a good thing I wake up early, because I did not do one productive thing after lunch all week.
Monday: drove an hour to meet with my advisor in the morning, so clearly it's OK to relax and shop in the afternoon.
Tuesday: did mind numbing research database compilation all morning (that could have probably been automated if I was slightly more creative) and accepted the fact that if I made no further progress between 12 and 2, I should just give up for the day. This was followed by a pang of guilt when I returned from the climbing gym in the evening, and I diligently worked until I got the required task done and sent off for review.
Wednesday: had a wonderfully productive morning where I caught up with 3 friends on Gchat, applied for about 5 jobs, and even did something research related. After lunch, decided I needed to dedicate my time to getting ready for meeting Brynne at 6 PM. Brynne is my friend, so it's important to be well prepared.
Thursday: sick day, obviously did not do any work.
Today: I woke up at a whopping 5 AM and jumped right into a programming tutorial in my online course catalog. This was followed by an entire morning of fluid mechanics, but as I already mentioned, it is Friday, so it is best to relax after lunch in preparation for the weekend.
Besides, I might start a temp job very soon, and then I will be very busy going to the office for 40 hours a week on top of research, fluid mechanics, and online software courses, so no reason to exert myself until it becomes necessary.

I hope that was Bridget Jones-esque for you.

Now, even though it is freezing, I would not technically label what I am wearing as "clothes." I don't mean to offend anyone, but any skin tight , black, stretchy bottoms garment that precisely shows off the shape of your ass is STILL not considered pants. Good thing they are underarmour brand and at least offer some compression, so it is an improved idealized version of my ass you are seeing. Since showering after my run was clearly out of the question, I figured that I should keep my running attire on as a visible excuse and apology for the sweaty, greasy-haired chic look I have going. Of course, since I changed into flip flops, I probably just look moderately ridiculous - but if everybody else in here trying to do work is really just people watching like I suspect they are, I know they all saw me zoom by at the end of my run ten minutes earlier.

Let's talk about you. How was your latest run? How is the weather wherever you are influencing what you are doing for the day?