I just made a little discovery about the nature of “should” and regret. What should I do, what should I have done, what is the perfect next move. They are interesting ideas but they can sometimes limit our understanding of the truth.
It doesn’t matter what happened in the past, or what will happen in the future, only how we feel about them now.
That is why everything is about processing feelings and even the permission exercise processes feelings about the future. Nothing matters but now.
It doesn’t even make sense to think about the future and the past because all we can control is the now.
Because nothing matters but the moment, we can process the past, we can process the future, and make our decision from where we are on how to feel the present. We can make decisions from the vantage point of now. We can do things now. We can feel now.
All that Matters is Now
I was scared of the past
Scared of what I might find
I was scared of the future
Scared of what I might do
But the place where I stand right now
With all the things that brought me to this moment
One of my good friends is obsessed with star signs and by proxy, I’ve gotten pretty into them as well. However, I’ve had my doubts. While it seems possible they actually tell you about what kind of person someone is (although I find it to be far less precise than systems like Myers Briggs and the Enneagram) one thing has always bothered me. Star signs make no logical sense.
How can the position of the sun and the moon determine your personality? Do all people who are born at the same time and place have the same personality? Where did they even come up with the correlations? Isn’t this based on mythology?
The first thing you should know about star signs is that everyone has multiple signs. The sign that most people focus on is the “sun” sign (basically the positioning of the sun when you are born) as it is supposed to be the dominant sign. However, there are signs for the positions of all the planets and the moon.
The three most “important” signs according to astrologers at the Sun, Moon, and Ascendant signs (in that order), and actually gave me this idea of why star signs are not completely bogus.
The Sun, for example, is dependant on the month of the year you are born, the moon the time of the month, and the Ascendant the time of day and location of your birth.
What first got me thinking was that it occurred to me that the personality attributed to each sun sign seemed to match the general climate and weather of the months the signs were connected to. For example, Capricorns are people born between December 22nd and January 20th the coldest times of the year for many places. Capricorns are incidentally known for being cold, calculating, and driven by a need to succeed. Taurus, known to be easygoing and mild are born April 20 – May 20 the most warm and mild times of the year. Leos are known for their fiery passion and confidence are born between July 23 – August 22, the hottest times of the year.
I asked before how everyone born at the same time in the same place had the same personality – perhaps they DO in some small part. Perhaps the climate and the time of day and month, the location on the planet have a profound effect on who we become and what we like because it determines the environment we are born in.
It is not inconceivable to me, for example, that babies born in winter may grow up to be harder colder, and more driven people (as a large generalization). And it’s not inconceivable that people born with the same Ascendant sign (with the same time and place of birth) might share a thing or two in common.
Even more beautiful is the thought that just as the position of the sun affects us with our seasons, perhaps the position of ALL the stars and planets affect us in some way – even if the effects are unseen and mysterious. Perhaps we are more a people of the stars than we know. I know I’d love to believe that.
It’s been a few days since I last wrote in this blog. I sometimes, I feel like I’m pushing a heavy bounder up the hill when I write. But I decided today I’m going to work through that and deliver something special. I remembered something that inspired me today. Writing isn’t about putting words together, it’s about clear thinking. And I love clear thinking.
Today, I was at the CLIO conference. CLIO is a software that law offices use.
During their keynote, author James Clear gave a speech about his bestselling book, Atomic Habits.
Clear on how to remove bad habits.Clear on how to form new habits.
He said a lot of things I already knew like that fact that forming habits are about creating small triggers for bigger actions (like putting on your shoes is the habit for running) and that powerful habits that are about who you want to become instead of achieving goals.
However, there is one new thing that stuck me.
He said that your physical space determines how successful your habits are. Look at the spaces that you are in for most of the day and that will tell you a lot about what habits are.
I want to institute these new habits:
Meditate more
Journal every night
Involve more people into my work
Create more videos
And here is how I plan to implement them:
Meditate
Atomic habit: Put on my mask, lay down on my couch, and turn on shamanic drumming
Changing my physical space: Place an eyemask next to my couch
Journal
Atomic habit: Write the date, and the words wins and worries
Changing my physical space: Using pillow in my lap to write
People
Atomic habit: When I have a big project write down people’s name who I can ask for help
Changing my physical space: Keep space clean enough for guests
Videos
Atomic habit: Set up the camera
Changing physical space: Create multiple shoot locations in apartment
In other news, the CLIO conference was so good for business. Everyone was friendly, looking to network. We had so many good conversions and met a lot of potential customers and partners. Some thoughts:
When people are at the top 1% of success, they tend to be far more relaxed and composed about success. They aren’t in a rush for a quick win. In that way, they may already be winning.
A huge part of marketing, partnerships, and sales is about finding the right place to find the right people who want to work with you. Something I think about my coaching business is where might that be?
Today I had a dance lesson that refocused things for me. See for a while, I felt stuck in dance and even singing and piano to a degree. I felt like I was doing exercises for nothing. Actually, I feel that way with French too.
But I realized recently that doing drills in dance isn’t like doing drills in Valorant (or maybe it is). It isn’t about getting the most kills or winning rounds. At the end of the day, dance is a lot more about painting. It’s about creating something.
Practicing dance is about creating a style, figuring out the kind of experience, world, and impression I want to create on the dance floor at a club, in a party, or just in my house. It is about finding my voice.
A big part of every learning endeavor is about finding motivation because it is always really hard in the beginning, really fucking hard to keep going. When my dance teacher asked me to find inspiration for dance, I didn’t know where to look because none of it made sense to me. Now I sort of understand. I want to create a style or a set of styles that feel like me. The inspiration just helps give me clarity on what that style is. I’m thinking contemporary dance, with some popping, waving, locking and isolation.
Thinking about it now, when I started writing this blog post, I realized it goes much farther than that. It goes to learning French, which is about finding my voice and the way I want to express myself in a new language. Singing and piano is about finding the things I want to create in music. Art is about bringing to life the kinds of paintings that I want to exist in the world, paintings that feel like me (I’m imagining some quirky abstract art now cuz I love that shit).
Art is about finding the spacing in life that you love, your favorite food, your favorite movie, book and song and combining that with the joy of expressing yourself. Art is about creating a beautiful space in the world for yourself and other people.
Think about a painting. A beautiful painting that you hang on the wall, or sell to someone else to hang on their wall. Think about the way that it would transform the space, create joy and wonder. That is what art is about. I think some people get lost. They think about is about technique. Or worse, they think art is about theory and about ideas. Sure art is all those things, but it isn’t ABOUT those things. The theories, the technique is all a PART of a feeling, an aesthetic that will make the world more comfy and beautiful in your eyes.
Last night I tried to go to Judo Club for the first time but they were closed for Thanksgiving.
The thing that I wanted to understand the most is why I have this feeling every time I want to leave my house, that I don’t want to go. I always want to live a life of adventure but I’m beginning to suspect that is because I never leave.
So let me try to break it down. The thoughts that come to my head when I think about venturing out:
It is too much energy
It is probably cold outside
I’ll have less time for gaming
I probably won’t like it
What if Judo isn’t useful to me
I don’t know Judo at all what if I’m bad at it
What if I need a gi, I don’t have a gi
Maybe I should go back to jiujitsu
What if it doesn’t help with jiujitsu
Does jiujitsu even help with self defense
I feel like I’m wasting my time
And these types of thoughts are also pervasive when I think about doing anything. Shopping, trying to make friends, or eating out. I don’t want to do anything.
I want someone that I know who is also game, but at the same time I don’t want to bring the wrong person who I don’t trust or feel safe around.
It does help to have my audiobook so at least when I drive I can get some escape into a cool and interesting world.
I think I feel very alone in this world. I think I now understand why I always push my gf to be more ambitious or wish that she was. It’s because then I would feel less alone.
But there is a good reason for going outside and experiencing life. I always want to feel anything is possible, to feel alive and connected to the world. To take risks and grow as a person. I suppose the counter to that is just feeling that the world feels too unsafe and like it will not understand me or give me what I need. At home, I have my games and friends and it feels nice and comforting.
Audiobooks are almost a way for me to self-soothe outside my house.
In a way, youtube and social media make sense too. It is like having a friend who you can tell things to when you feel alone outside filming or going on adventures.
I want to accept my loneliness. The first thing that comes to my mind is to turn my loneliness into art.
As I slowly process, I start to think about how I can slowly start branching out by staying in my apartment complex but leaving my actual apartment.
I understand why people find solace in religion. I really feel that I need a group of people who are seeking to do the same thing as me. To do things in life. To have the same values and philosophies. Not just share the same favorite TV shows. I have a friend who is Christian and I envy his options in having those deep connections. It just doesn’t feel right to me, because I don’t believe in that faith.
I am almost seeking spirituality.
That is an interesting statement. I’ve always felt that was the thing that was missing from my life. I have career success, success in money and even love. It is spirituality that I’ve never embraced because I felt nothing from a lot of the types of spirituality proposed to me.
Two more things occur to me now.
First, is that I recently borrowed a book called Man’s Search for Meaning By Viktor Frankl and I will read it. It is actually funny that this book was available for me to borrow at this time (I had to put it on hold since there were no available copies when I first checked) because it is supposed to be the best book for my EXACT problem. Spirituality. Meaning. Purpose. It was written by a Holocaust survivor.
The second thing that occurs to me is that I used to do a lot of work to change the world. It’s been a long time since I have done that sort of thing, but I think it really gave me something of what I need right now. I think that’s why I love coaching so much. It fills many needs, but one of the needs is for doing something that is changing the world for the better.
That’s it for now I suppose. I will go read that book now (or listen to it, since I got the audiobook version).
I was doing some deep journaling in the form of questions and answers, where I would ask all the questions I have, feel deep in my heart what answer is coming to me, and then asking more questions about those answers.
For example, I will ask myself, what do I do about the anxiety with art? The answer that I feel come up intuitively is to create art which then poses the question, what do I do with art? Then I have the answer, use art to create richness in your life.
I was doing this exercise because I realized at this point in my life, I am so confused on what will happen next and what direction I want to go for my coaching, my career, and my relationship that the best way to serve myself is to get some clarity about what I am feeling and what I want. The faster you make decisions, the faster you progress. I felt that having clarity would make it much easier to make faster decisions.
I had quite a few revelations from this exercise I wanted to note down a few of the most important ones:
I will achieve what I want in the field of AI not by working with others and creating a startup but rather by involving others into my creative process. Remember the energy of anything is possible. Solve difficult problems in practical ways and help people dream again. Change the world for the better.
The long distance relationship does not meet the physical needs of closeness. I will need to dance more to keep in touch with the physical. I want to use emails and video chats to keep connected with my girlfriend on a spiritual level.
I’ve lost a bit of my focus with coaching where it has become too much about the client. Coaching is not just about helping people create amazing beautiful art, but also to create a space of my design. Aka a space where connection theory and flow theory rule.
Use your fear of not having enough money to fuel art that creates more wealth than money can buy (not about the value of the art, but the experience about having stories, music, and paintings so beautiful I may as well be rich).
One more note I wanted to make…I had a new idea with coaching a few days ago. I always wanted to create video clips of my coaching in order to show social media, but I was thinking recently, I can create clips that can be used to share something a package that can be used to motivate my clients (clips of songs created during the session, major breakthroughs etc.)
Today I will be playing a lot of Valorant and hopefully processing a lot of the stress and feelings I have around Valorant through the use of poetry.
Pregame Stress
I’ve got knots in my stomach
What if it is another day
Of humiliation
That drop in my stomach
Feeling helpless
Like I’m worth nothing
I go down in rank
The more I play
What is wrong me
That I cannot get better
I hate this
Myself
Me
Hands Sweaty
On my keyboard
Heat on my face
Clenched stomach
It is no wonder
Valorant has such a big impact on me
I wish to let go of my fears
And remember the satisfaction of shooting
I starting to find it a challenge to write poetry because my mind always turns to thinking strategically and thinking in terms of sentanaces and bullet points. I’m going to roll with that. If that is how I feel, we are just going to write in sentences and bullet points.
I feel a bit tired like I’m walking through a haze. I’m scared to start a ranked game, and yet there is an eagerness to gain rr. Gold 1, what could go wrong? Yet I’m scared. HOW DID I GET TO GOLD 1? That’s unhead of. It gives me so much anxiety that I don’t know what is going on.
I want to remind myself of my main valorant tenants:
Think of it as a 1v5
Follow your feelings, peek when you are ready
Keep wrist relaxed, use movement keys to aim
Some additional tenants:
Find a space angle to hold, something that feels safe
Peek expecting them there
Notice things about aim, don’t try to change them, noticing is the pathway to the unconscious mind
Goddamn, this fucking omen can’t hit him while he’s moving . Why is Silver Movement so good?????
WHY IS THE RAZE HIDING IN THAT AREA? NO FUCKING COMMS? I hate this team. Why can I not hit shots.
I think I wasn’t aware of the danger I was in when clearing heaven. Maybe need more of that 1v5 mindset. Also, maybe need to notice where my shots are going. Scared but playing again. It is silvers I am with WHY THE FUCK ARE THEY KILLING ME. Counterstrafing, one tapping me??? WHAT DO I NEED TO DO?
THIS IS LIKE GOING BACK 2 FUCKING YEARS. I guess what I thought before is that I would never drop this low because I can beat them on gamesense alone.
I feel tired. Why are the braindead idiots getting more kills? I feel a bit better now. I adjusted and I was able to get a bunch of kills in the end. I guess its just about holding better angles.
I don’t like this bullshit bottom fragging. I feel so tired and awful and I feel hungry.
It is interesting that with these reflections I was able to drop 39 kills in one of my games.
