Baba Yaga builds her house on stilts, pricing in the mudslides to make enduring architectural forms. She builds her front porch wide, wide enough for those who find their way up on it, wide enough for old men who practice the arts of the barbecue. Baba runs a zip line through the trees. Crows nest to crows nest, the babas remember how to send messages between one another. Sometimes they send people back and forth. The young ones like to try. Maybe this spring we’ll reinforce the safety nets. Those who jump will fall. Good if something catches them in case they want to try again.
Your thoughts on boredom reminded me of a funny incident - I recently moved to NYC and felt like there weren’t really any good food options to order in, which even I could recognize made no sense given the city I’m in. But reading your post made me realise I essentially was trying to balance multiple competing desires without sorting out my own win condition.
Part of me cared about keeping the price low, another part missed my mum’s cooking at home. Another part wanted to explore all the various cuisines and food available here, while an another wanted to eat healthy. Another part wanted convenience of receiving the food quickly, another just wanted something greasy and cheesy.
Unnecessarily paralysing lmao but it’s oddly easier to do this dance than actually try to come up with a plan, especially for something so mood-driven 🙃
As usual, this post leaves me with much to think about. One thing I’ll share is I feel the mudslide experience quite strongly—I find the conversational eddies online, where the same topics and arguments cycle around over and over, to be tedious. More insidiously, often they pull my mind in and I find myself thinking about those things rather than what I personally find interesting which is a shame. When I notice this happening I usually log off for a while to reset.
This comment is bad and negative and unsolicited but I've been following you for years and I resonate with alot of your life themes.
I think you are quite confused and running around in this circle and its taken a toll on you and your family.
But that's not on you really -- I think we have reached the logical conclusion of our ideas . (TPOTism) And we found out that none of them work. Have never worked and will never work. Because if they were to work , it'd be a one and done thing, not something you have to bully yourself into remembering. The Gita doesn't need a reread.
You've always in a state of giving yourself an in between project, you'll become effective AFTER you went back through decades of ur old notes , sorted them , and recontextualized them.. THEN you'll have all the answers. The result is an impossible inbetween project that spans for decades and you still haven't reached your goals.
The approach itself I think this is a misguided approach.. if it didn't survive with current visa , then the idea didn't work and didn't survive natural selection. Pack it nd move on.
I think your woes are percisely that you don't know what you want and you believe that you must get to a state of knowing by doing endless introspection which again , has not worked does not work and will never work.
You have conflicting expectations and ideas about the world and urself in it -- and u will tell me that this is fixed with introspection but ur style of introspection is all about emotional work rather than debugging ur worldview
For example u think u need to be a hotshot essayist and thus u confuse urself with how to be one.. instead of doing what got u here in the first place and no it isnt "love of writing" its more you have an observation and u share it and that became overtime visakanv
I am sorry for this comment , truly, but i had to get it out of my chest bc i believe u and i have similiar constitutions (ENFP) and i have resolved my issues through decade of painful trial and error. I hope this comment is not too insulting
For what it's worth, boredom can ultimately be very useful in that it's the driver of / headspace for our best ideas. Perhaps if someone feels stuck, they're not bored enough?
A friend and I were talking about this recently. It's easy to feel like what we've gotten really good at is finding circles inside and out. Also we are tired enough to long for the pain of something important. I'm glad to see you writing.
I recently encountered a poem I like by Anne Boyer called WHAT RESEMBLES THE GRAVE BUT ISN'T:
Always falling into a hole, then saying “ok, this is not your grave, get out of this hole,” getting out of the hole which is not the grave, falling into a hole again, saying “ok, this is also not your grave, get out of this hole,” getting out of that hole, falling into another one; sometimes falling into a hole within a hole, or many holes within holes, getting out of them one after the other, then falling again, saying “this is not your grave, get out of the hole”; sometimes being pushed, saying “you can not push me into this hole, it is not my grave,” and getting out defiantly, then falling into a hole again without any pushing; sometimes falling into a set of holes whose structures are predictable, ideological, and long dug, often falling into this set of structural and impersonal holes; sometimes falling into holes with other people, with other people, saying “this is not our mass grave, get out of this hole,” all together getting out of the hole together, hands and legs and arms and human ladders of each other to get out of the hole that is not the mass grave but that will only be gotten out of together; sometimes the willful-falling into a hole which is not the grave because it is easier than not falling into a hole really, but then once in it, realizing it is not the grave, getting out of the hole eventually; sometimes falling into a hole and languishing there for days, weeks, months, years, because while not the grave very difficult, still, to climb out of and you know after this hole there’s just another and another; sometimes surveying the landscape of holes and wishing for a high quality final hole; sometimes thinking of who has fallen into holes which are not graves but might be better if they were; sometimes too ardently contemplating the final hole while trying to avoid the provisional ones; sometimes dutifully falling and getting out, with perfect fortitude, saying “look at the skill and spirit with which I rise from that which resembles the grave but isn’t!”
Baba Yaga builds her house on stilts, pricing in the mudslides to make enduring architectural forms. She builds her front porch wide, wide enough for those who find their way up on it, wide enough for old men who practice the arts of the barbecue. Baba runs a zip line through the trees. Crows nest to crows nest, the babas remember how to send messages between one another. Sometimes they send people back and forth. The young ones like to try. Maybe this spring we’ll reinforce the safety nets. Those who jump will fall. Good if something catches them in case they want to try again.
❤️🔥
In the meantime, we’ll ponder.
Your thoughts on boredom reminded me of a funny incident - I recently moved to NYC and felt like there weren’t really any good food options to order in, which even I could recognize made no sense given the city I’m in. But reading your post made me realise I essentially was trying to balance multiple competing desires without sorting out my own win condition.
Part of me cared about keeping the price low, another part missed my mum’s cooking at home. Another part wanted to explore all the various cuisines and food available here, while an another wanted to eat healthy. Another part wanted convenience of receiving the food quickly, another just wanted something greasy and cheesy.
Unnecessarily paralysing lmao but it’s oddly easier to do this dance than actually try to come up with a plan, especially for something so mood-driven 🙃
As usual, this post leaves me with much to think about. One thing I’ll share is I feel the mudslide experience quite strongly—I find the conversational eddies online, where the same topics and arguments cycle around over and over, to be tedious. More insidiously, often they pull my mind in and I find myself thinking about those things rather than what I personally find interesting which is a shame. When I notice this happening I usually log off for a while to reset.
This comment is bad and negative and unsolicited but I've been following you for years and I resonate with alot of your life themes.
I think you are quite confused and running around in this circle and its taken a toll on you and your family.
But that's not on you really -- I think we have reached the logical conclusion of our ideas . (TPOTism) And we found out that none of them work. Have never worked and will never work. Because if they were to work , it'd be a one and done thing, not something you have to bully yourself into remembering. The Gita doesn't need a reread.
You've always in a state of giving yourself an in between project, you'll become effective AFTER you went back through decades of ur old notes , sorted them , and recontextualized them.. THEN you'll have all the answers. The result is an impossible inbetween project that spans for decades and you still haven't reached your goals.
The approach itself I think this is a misguided approach.. if it didn't survive with current visa , then the idea didn't work and didn't survive natural selection. Pack it nd move on.
I think your woes are percisely that you don't know what you want and you believe that you must get to a state of knowing by doing endless introspection which again , has not worked does not work and will never work.
You have conflicting expectations and ideas about the world and urself in it -- and u will tell me that this is fixed with introspection but ur style of introspection is all about emotional work rather than debugging ur worldview
For example u think u need to be a hotshot essayist and thus u confuse urself with how to be one.. instead of doing what got u here in the first place and no it isnt "love of writing" its more you have an observation and u share it and that became overtime visakanv
I am sorry for this comment , truly, but i had to get it out of my chest bc i believe u and i have similiar constitutions (ENFP) and i have resolved my issues through decade of painful trial and error. I hope this comment is not too insulting
With Love
What did you do to resolve yours? If you don't mind sharing
> you still haven't reached your goals
I have reached a lot of my goals
> you believe that you must get to a state of knowing by doing endless introspection
I don’t believe this
> u will tell me that this is fixed with introspection but ur style of introspection is all about emotional work
I’ve said no such thing + this is not my style of introspection
> I hope this comment is not too insulting
it’s not; you don’t actually know me and your portrait of me is too inaccurate for me to feel any particular way about it
For what it's worth, boredom can ultimately be very useful in that it's the driver of / headspace for our best ideas. Perhaps if someone feels stuck, they're not bored enough?
A friend and I were talking about this recently. It's easy to feel like what we've gotten really good at is finding circles inside and out. Also we are tired enough to long for the pain of something important. I'm glad to see you writing.
I recently encountered a poem I like by Anne Boyer called WHAT RESEMBLES THE GRAVE BUT ISN'T:
Always falling into a hole, then saying “ok, this is not your grave, get out of this hole,” getting out of the hole which is not the grave, falling into a hole again, saying “ok, this is also not your grave, get out of this hole,” getting out of that hole, falling into another one; sometimes falling into a hole within a hole, or many holes within holes, getting out of them one after the other, then falling again, saying “this is not your grave, get out of the hole”; sometimes being pushed, saying “you can not push me into this hole, it is not my grave,” and getting out defiantly, then falling into a hole again without any pushing; sometimes falling into a set of holes whose structures are predictable, ideological, and long dug, often falling into this set of structural and impersonal holes; sometimes falling into holes with other people, with other people, saying “this is not our mass grave, get out of this hole,” all together getting out of the hole together, hands and legs and arms and human ladders of each other to get out of the hole that is not the mass grave but that will only be gotten out of together; sometimes the willful-falling into a hole which is not the grave because it is easier than not falling into a hole really, but then once in it, realizing it is not the grave, getting out of the hole eventually; sometimes falling into a hole and languishing there for days, weeks, months, years, because while not the grave very difficult, still, to climb out of and you know after this hole there’s just another and another; sometimes surveying the landscape of holes and wishing for a high quality final hole; sometimes thinking of who has fallen into holes which are not graves but might be better if they were; sometimes too ardently contemplating the final hole while trying to avoid the provisional ones; sometimes dutifully falling and getting out, with perfect fortitude, saying “look at the skill and spirit with which I rise from that which resembles the grave but isn’t!”