Mental Overreach

Last night I watched a 2 hour PBS special on Catherine the Great. The night before I watched a Bill Moyer’s special on ‘Capitol Crimes.’ Both are excellent DVDs that I borrowed from the library. I still have more DVDs to watch: mini-series on ‘The Kennedys’, on ‘Jennie’ (Winston Churchill’s’ American mother), another Moyer special about religion and politics, a special on China, golf tips, Burn’s New York documentary and other assorted films. Aside from these DVDs, I enrolled in six online courses: modern poetry, social networks, modern history, stock investing, digital artifacts and human – computer interaction. Aside from that, I am reading a couple of books on improving my golf score, magazines like Vanity Fair, Wired and assorted Home and Living magazines. On top of that, I wanted to participate in Nanowrimo – a November Novel Writing event and bang out a draft this month. Of course, the last task will never happen.

Aside from these activities at home, I am testing and managing a small project that expects to go live in December, engaged in another project that is more complicated and larger in scope plus helping support an application that went live last year. A heavy work load that includes starting a guild network, participating in Toastmasters (being the TMOD in yesterday’s meeting) and managing the blog site of the club – an activity I neglected for the past months. It’s no wonder that I seem dazed and confused, wondering if I am getting old with declining faculties but any fool can see that I am over booked. The stress of support is also wearing me down, with different staff in warehouses calling me, requiring me to drop what I am doing and work on the problem, solve the issue and coordinate with IBM. It’s no wonder I am losing my hair and looking stressed out. Add trips to the gym three times a week plus an occasional golf game in the weekend complete the picture of a busy life.

I invited friends over this coming Sunday, celebrating Thanksgiving a week early, with plans to smoke a turkey and deep-fry another one. A celebration to thank the Lord, re-establish friendship plus rejoice on the rental of my old home - relieving me of financial pressure. There’s much to thank for including the enjoyment of my new house plus other pleasurable circumstances. I just don’t know why I need to do more; perhaps to confirm my new conditions by learning a new fact or skill. Sadly, it does not help in my goal of completing a book. In other words I am procrastinating - diverting myself to other areas. Perhaps it’s a natural instinct to learn more and seek a deeper truth after achieving some success. But I neglected my journal writing which contribute to my mental fog, and returning to my blog has cleared my head somewhat. I feel I have emerged from a deep forest and into a clearing; after completing the home purchase, renting out my townhouse, proceeding with my projects and getting things done at work and at home. Unfortunately, I am not doing the right task of novel writing but instead making my time unnecessarily hectic.

Decline Begins with a Large House

A larger home brings space to one’s thinking. It’s like one’s petty concerns are lifted out of their usual rut. There is a feeling of having emerged from constricted thought that one realizes when living in constrained spaces; that is not conducive to transcendent thought; that one moves to television or to drink in order to rise above the small surroundings, especially if one shares space with others. Now the openness and light of a larger home have brought out the largeness of spirit. One has always thought that the mind should be impervious to one’s surroundings – a Buddhist belief I think with the image of a lotus flower rising amidst the filth of a dirty stream. One’s surroundings do influence you – so one must strive to make it conducive to higher thought. One no longer needs to rely on alcoholic substances to get mental space – a space Ekhart Tolle talks about when one must be alive to the moment without letting troubling thoughts mar one’s serenity.

Still the mental grooves remain; one still persists on living as before, forever throwing ceaseless activity to the mind, to keep churning as in the past. In the weekend, I managed to cram 2 miniseries while enjoying a golf game on Saturday morning. The German mini – series ‘Buddenbrooks’ from a novel by Thomas Mann, was an enjoyable and educational work.

Several weeks back I had watched the English mini – series ‘Downton Abbey’ which I enjoyed – another series about a wealthy family in trouble. Also during the weekend I watched the English mini-series ‘Traffik’ about the international drug trade with scenes filmed in Karachi - Pakistan, London - England and Hamburg - Germany. The mini-series was later made into a Hollywood film starring Michael Douglass. “Buddenbrooks” offers a detailed account of a wealthy German mercantile family, portraying 3 generations, whose decline starts when the descendants moved into a much larger home. As for ‘Downton Abbey’, a large estate is in peril with the death of their heir especially with the high costs associated in keeping the large estate.

So one wonders if decline starts with owning property, which is what happened in the financial crisis of 2009 when sub-prime mortgages brought the housing market down and has not fully recovered four years later. Debt and being over-leveraged are the ills of a society with easy credit, spurred on by securitization and sophisticated financial wizardry that brought down countries like Ireland, Spain and Iceland. This has become the crucial theme of the current election: does one vote for a financial genius - a wealthy business man who deals in maximizing profit and with deposits in off shore back accounts, or a political genius – a believer in the role of government to save people affected by the crisis; spending government money (i.e. people’s taxes) in the classic Keynesian antidote of fiscal stimulus to fight recession. Like the cavalry coming to the rescue, the economy is picking up, with lower unemployment reported last week, thereby bolstering the odds of the incumbent. Tonight is the last debate with the general election only 2 weeks away.

The Republican multi-millionaire has several large houses that one wonders if he is overextended. One is reminded of Donald Trump but without the extravagance and multiple marriages. But it all boils down to diligent labor not over-leverage – for example my plan for salvation, in case things go wrong, is to become a novelist – to write myself out of any financial predicament by sheer hard work and inspiration. A goal I had not had a chance to pursue due to the move and my predilection to read more, watch DVDs, attend online courses and play golf in the weekends. But next month is Nanowrimo month – where I have a chance to jump start my aspirations by completing a first draft of 40,000 words. I am still resting from my labors of completing 2 online creative writing courses but I think I have learned enough of the craft to move forward. I had also registered 500 books read in Shelfari.com, after finishing the book ‘God’s Crucible’ last week; an indication of progress since one must be a reader before one becomes a writer.

Working at Home

I am reading my emails and working on a few things for work. I am using a new laptop issued to me and much better because the wireless connection works at home unlike my last one. Initially I felt that I needed to do some backup in my old laptop which I already did but felt that I needed to check each one directory and file. I am a pack rat and I still keep some old newspapers which I promised myself to read. But yesterday I threw out the box of old papers and I had a liberating feeling like when I turned over my old laptop. Life is to short to keep planning these little things for the future like reading old newspapers. Now I get everything in video and audio direct from the Internet.

Although I am on leave this week, I still need to continue working because there is a load of things to do and the year is coming to a close. I get a chance to plan better and I get to work on my own leisure pace. Yesterday morning I went roller-blading in the park and in the early evening I went swimming. Later I plan to go to the park, go to the library and attend a PMI meeting tonight. But I also need to do some work during the day. I have made some decisions to improve my daily schedule. I have been late these past many months at work which I attribute to my early morning exercises at the park. I also spend this time listening to my audio books which contribute to my lateness.

So I decided to stop my early morning walks at the park and instead switch them to the evening after dinner. So I get to work out my dinner so I can digest the food better and continue listening to the audio book. I think it will decrease my tardiness at work. I also will focus on work first thing in the morning while my mind is fresh and later do my Internet surfing and blogging in the afternoon. Bu I won't stop my morning exercise altogether as I plan to do them at least once for my roller blading. I moved my roller blading in weekdays instead of Saturday morning so I can focus on Saturdays for my writing. I started this schedule last week but could not focus on writing and instead procrastinated by surfing the Internet.

But I think I am past that because I have had my fill of what is out there. I am amazed that I could get high quality analysis in audio and video about the economy, politics, art, literature and culture so easily. So I don't need to hog my old copies of Financial Times, Economist and International Herald Tribune. Hence, I could throw out these printed papers and focus on the audio and video versions. I get to learn and absorb more but I found that I absorb better by reading instead of listening. But listening and absorbing via this medium is in fact another skill that I need to develop. It's a much faster and complete medium because it uses more senses particularly sound and sight, especially the videos.

I am completing Kipling's short stories and they're wonderful. It's very varied with stories of 2 British adventures in Central Asia, adventures of a colonel's 6 year old son in India, a match of polo in India with the ponies speaking to each other, 2 drummer's dying in a skirmish with Afghans and a story about World War I. But it's his India stories that catch the attention. While working I listen to the tape of contemporary Indian music which I bought in New Delhi. It's a good learning experience to be able to immerse yourself completely in the sights and sounds of a place and learn more about it. India was such a incredible experience for both the British and Indians.

November is Nanowrimo month where a lot of new novelist-to-be attempt to churn 50,000 pages in a month. I think that I will join in the enthusiasm of the event. My plan is to help craft the structure, plot and characters before hand. Once November begins, I will start writing out the first draft of the novel. I think Nanowrimo is a good idea and a lot of resources in the website are useful to would be novelist like me. I think at this point in time, I have diagnosed my shortcomings and areas where improvement is needed. Problem is my procrastination and my load of books and other activities to do. At least I hope to have a first draft of the novel by year end if I go forward with this schedule.