re: my… malaise.

While I was in Denver a few weeks ago and pretty much everything went the way I didn’t want it to go, a friend and coach suggested to me that I look at what, in my life, I was still not dealing with or letting go unmanaged. When she asked me, the answer was right there for me:

I can’t have what I want.

So then she asked me what I want, and I realized I didn’t know. Asking someone what they want is a pretty open-ended question and while I am pretty clear on what I don’t want, I haven’t spent a lot of time figuring out what I do want.

Over the last couple of days, I’ve been thinking about what it is that I really want, and why it is that I so deeply believe that I can’t have it. And then, some time on Thursday, the conversation shifted:

I already have what I want.

The more I think about it, the more I see that this is a more accurate statement. I really, truly do not know what I could ask for other than what I already have.

What I realized is that my previous core belief assumed that I want solutions to all my problems, and that’s not so. Without problems I’d be miserable. I’d be bored to tears. I’d have nothing to do. I have constituted myself as someone who solves problems and there’s nothing that makes me happier or feel more fulfilled than having a big set of difficult problems to sink my teeth into. The best moments of my life have been when I have worked and worked and worked and finally solved something. These moments were brief, and followed immediately by thoughts of how I will do it better next time–not like there’s something wrong with the solution I came up with, but excitement that there’s still a level of performance and improvement I can reach for.

I have reached a point in my life where the problems I have chosen (and am choosing) for myself to deal with are really hard problems. Some seem hopeless. None of them are problems I can solve on my own. I’ve complained ad nauseum about them, but I realize now I wouldn’t trade them for anything. They are my problems. Some people have kids and some people have students and some people have pets and I have problems.

See here.

I need to blog about addiction. I don’t have all my thoughts in order yet. This just increases my sense of urgency about the whole thing…

When I was three years old, my dad worked at Safeway, and one day was involved in an altercation (over beer) with a would-be shoplifter. This would-be shoplifter basically destroyed one of my dad’s knees.

When he got home from the hospital, my dad was stuck in bed basically all the time. I went in with my mom to visit with him and made some request–I have no idea what the request was–and the answer was no. So I did what any three-year-old does: I threw a tantrum. I threw my head back and hit my dad. In the knee. The same knee.

My mom removed me from the room (which probably saved my life) and twenty years later, my dad finally got that knee completely replaced.

The reason I bring up this whole dreary tale is that this was one of my most important formative moments. This is where I started asking people, “why aren’t you helping me?” and telling them “go away–leave me alone!” The moment after I hit my dad in the knee, I knew I’d screwed up, and as much as I resisted the notion, I knew that I couldn’t take it back.

We’ve all had moments like this. Dropping something and watching it break, or getting into a car accident, or saying something stupid. As soon as it’s done you know it’s a mistake and as much as you want to–and you really, really want to–you can’t hit ctrl-z and take it back. The bell has been rung. The toothpaste is out of the tube.

So I realized a couple of weeks ago that this event in my life had another consequence that had gone unnoticed. I have been, and continue to be, someone who is driven to solve problems, to fix things, and to improve everything. It’s even become a joke with some of my friends: they’ll show me something cool, and take bets on how long it takes for me to start talking about how I’d build a better one.

The funny part is that as soon as I realized how driven I am to solve problems and fix things, I started relating to my problem-solving and thing-fixing drive as a problem to solve and a thing to fix. And I’m still doing it.

So I’ve got a problem, which is that I screwed up and can’t fix it. So I’m driven to solve problems and fix things. And when I see that I’m driven, I try to solve and fix being driven. And then I see that I’m trying to solve and fix my attempt to solve and fix being a problem-solver and thing-fixer.

*deep breath*

I’m giving up fixing and solving and improving right now, just for right now. Nothing is wrong here and everything is just the way it is and I am OK.

*exhale*

That worked. Thank you.

This blog is now owned by naptastic@gmail.com and not naptastic@comcast.net. Thank you, Scott.

It’s gotten really, really easy. Just one shell script with root privileges. Details here.

So, now, both of my main computers are running 64-bit Ubuntu 10.04 with all the bells and whistles–custom kernel with the latest realtime patchset, kernel modesetting, nouveau, jackd and ardour from svn, and my favorite part, llvmpipe. My idle CPU usage has dropped by half.

Another victory: I try to keep two servers around all the time in case one decides to biff it, but my “hot spare” started acting weird a few months ago when I dusted it off to update its packages. I was about ready to write it off but decided I should give it another go. Replacing the suspicious video card and running memtest86, I discovered that one of the RAM chips was bad. I replaced it, and the system is like new again. (Well, as new as a 1600mhz single-core 32-bit-only Athlon can be.)

Since Todd’s death last week, I have been very… inhibited about writing. And there is still much to write about. Some teasers:

– The Location of Meaning / Why Integrity is necessary / When Integrity is not necessary / a universe without language (that’s going to be a very heady post)
– Responsibility, or, what you can do to help
– Measuring the things that matter
– Joy and Fulfillment versus Fun and Diversions
– Addiction (which I might never get around to writing)
– Building Zion (which, as an Atheist, is a really interesting topic)
– The rest of what The Matrix is (I don’t know how many posts that will take.)

As all of these topics bounce around in my head, one question still haunts me: is there hope? Part of what it means for a human being to be a human being right now is that we tend to get sucked into what I called earlier a “black hole of the mind”–where we get programmed to think a certain way, and to protect that certain way of thinking, no matter what. Probably most of these certain ways of thinking actually operate counter to our personal desires–love, happiness, fulfillment, fun, satisfaction, meeting our basic needs for survival, comfort–but the certain ways of thinking are entrenched and guarded with the most advanced systems of defense, so they stay in place even when we would be best served by disassembling them. (These certain ways of thinking are central to what The Matrix really is.)

Is it possible for humans to transform this part of our existence? If so, how? And when? And how can I help? And if not, what does that mean about the existence of humanity? Are we doomed to defeat ourselves for eternity? Will we, at some point in the future, exterminate ourselves? And what about me?

One thing that might be really helpful is if someone would be willing to have some of these conversations with me, in person, and record and transcribe the conversation. It’s an unreasonable request (and I’m an unreasonable person) but if you’d like to sacrifice some of your time for something that will make a difference to me and maybe a handful of others, let’s talk about it.