Day 22 - Running For Something

This morning, I started the morning and the week in a low energy lethargy that I found myself battling in one of those brain fights that are forced on me from time to time. Battles that sometimes I win and most times I lose. When I turned on the iTunes and caught the Melissa Ethridge song "Run for Life," the song she recorded after her battle with breast cancer and her declaration of solidarity and purpose in the struggle against cancer, I thought of friends and loved ones who have had the disease in one form or another and who have both died from it and battled it back to a thriving life, I was laid sideways by a HUNGER for something more than the every day meandering that takes up most of my time.

Paul Newman's death this weekend went by very quietly in the midst of all the other things that I was doing. I heard a brief bit of an interview with him on the radio and I read bits and pieces in passing as I glanced at one newspaper article or another. The thing that I was most taken by was the way he latched on to living and held it. Whether acting, in his marriage to Joanne Woodward, at his camps for kids, as a race car driver, a gastronomical entrepeneur, or just as a good and decent human being, Newman LIVED.

More than anything, THIS is what I am seeking to gain in the remaining three weeks of this 40 Day plan. This is "the bliss" that Campbell talks about.

I want to find MY way back to real life again. I want to know the passion that, at one time, I felt every morning, and that I so deeply desire to feel again. I want to find the energy, the focus, and the intention to get up every morning and pursue THAT each day... EVERY DAY.

Day 20 & 21 - Still Learning to Rest

I've never been particularly good at settling down and resting. There is a family anecdote that has been repeated often throughout my life that describes how my parents could never get me to rest as a kid, could never get me to lie down for a nap, or stay in bed beyond sunrise in the morning.

This is a behavior that, for the most part, remains in my DNA. Whether it's an evening of sitting around and reading, or a Saturday at the beach, or a weekend away (let alone something longer, like a week), if I don't have something to do, something that gets me moving and occupies my brain, something (often related to a computer unfortunately) that lets me feel productive even if it's actually having the opposite effect, I tend to be jumpy, nervous and scattered.

This weekend was an ongoing attempt, partly successful and partly not so much, at settling into rest mode. I spent time at a couple of soccer matches, did some shopping, some cooking, a little bit of reading, but still on both Saturday and Sunday I found it necessary to move to the electronic vortex and twiddle the keys.

One of the greatest lessons for me in this 40 Days is the need for downtime. My goal is to set Saturdays aside for some rest and some work (most particularly writing), a day for catching up AND settling down, with Sundays dedicated completely to rest, and rejuvenation (physical, mental and spiritual). In my wildest imagination I don't even look at a computer on Sunday, I take a "digital sabbath."

Like most of the other goals in the plan... I am definitely getting better at this... but I'm definitely not there yet.

Day 19 - Halfway Home

Today is the last day of the first half of the 40 days. Tomorrow is the actual halfway point, but considering that my goal arrives three weeks from today, it seems worthwhile in my mind,such as it is, to place myself at the center of the line today.

So where am I?

What have I accomplished... what have I done well... What needs work... What is left to be done?

• I have made great progress on the underlying groundwork for what I want. My personal schedule and my basic discipline at maintaining it is the best it's been in a long time, maybe better than I've ever been.

• I have picked up certain disciplines and behaviors (a regulation on how and when I get email, talk on the phone, write, read, workout, etc.) that are necessary for keeping things moving forward. These are the kinds of things that don't seem like a big deal to people who have to go into the office every day, but when, like me, you've worked on your own schedule in your own way for 30 years it can be very easy to lose that disciplined structure and lose the benefits that such structure provides. I haven't succeeded at dialing this in completely (as can be seen from my last two days of posts) but I'm getting close. I am, however, picking up that "Creative Habit" that Twyla Tharpe talks about.

• I have, on some level, at least begun about 90% of the goals I set up on my list. I expect to nail down the rest of them by the beginning of next week. That gives me the last half of this program to target myself full speed ahead.

• I have learned that it is ALL in your mind.

What I have not figured out is how to balance it all. How do you keep the plates spinning AND live a light hearted, conscious life?

Hopefully I will discover that somewhere in the remaining 21 days.

Day 18 - Living in The Vortex

Another day that was good but not great. A day where I found myself distracted by the various little things that are lying out there in the grass to snip at your heels as you run by, to trip you up and slow you down.

In short it was a day when I didn't get as much done as I had hoped. At the same time I had some good interactions with new clients that will at least help me keep moving forward. Some days it seems that this is the most you can expect, even when you are hopefully playing toward the top of your game.

As Sam Eliot says in The Big Lebowski, "Sometimes you eat the bar, sometimes the bar eats you."

Today I got away with a small nip.

Day 17 - Slooowwwwwwly I turn... Step by step...

You have to be of "a certain age" to remember the Three Stooges routine I reference in the title.

What brings it to mind this afternoon has nothing to do with The Three Stooges, but with the process of the day.

The week has been a good one so far. I've pulled together a schedule and started on several new goals that were in the list two weeks ago but which I didn't begin to address until yesterday. At the same time, there are other parts of the plan that seem to slip through my grasp.

In particular is a plan that I have labored over for nearly three years; an attempt to turn Wednesday into what it was for the Mouseketeers... Anything Can Happen Day! For me, it's intended to take this afternoon smack in the middle of the week and give me a chance to do research, explore new ideas, go to a museum, or the library... ANYTHING that can push me over the hump of hump day and into the rest of the week, supercharged with ideas and ready to complete important tasks.

What it's turned into (almost every week for the last three years) is a day of pick me ups and catch ups; a day when the things that got lost in the first part of the week get tied up (or at least wrapped in a bow). Frankly, this isn't a bad thing per se, but it isn't what I've been trying to make happen.

What it is, is another part of the process... Each element, each task, needs practice and grace. Each step is only partial. It's a marathon not a long jump.

Slooowwwwwwly I turn... just don't mention Niagra Falls.

Day 16 - The Yin and Yang of The Here and Now

My reading list at the moment (now that I just finished a biography of Babe Ruth that I've been reading along the arc of baseball season) is an interesting yin yang (what others might perhaps choose to call schizophrenic) of Thomas Merton and Hunter Thompson ("Fear and Loathing on the Campaign Trail")... my musical choices tend to flip between Springsteen and Bernstein (with a little Cockburn thrown in for good measure)... and my physical activities struggle with each other across the divide between running and sitting.

This is me two weeks in with 24 Days left "...to Life." It's not terribly different from the delicate balance between success and failure, life and death, asceticism and debauchery, or abundance and insolvency that I have struck through most of my life. This time though, I am noticing that the intentionality of examination, and the accompanying attempt to lay it all out in public does put a razor edge to the whole thing. It pushes me up on days when I might be more likely to go under and it forces me forward when I would rather sit on the barstool and have another beer (not that that doesn't still happen on occasion, just to be clear).

I possess a definite bi-polar streak. I believe it to be medically related to my epilepsy, and it tends to be mostly manageable, though I'm really not sure whether the dilantin I take for the epilepsy affects it or not.

The balance tends to be tenuous nonetheless. What works for me though is focus... CONSTANT focus. If I let my guard down I can lose my balance in seconds. What I was working on, so hard and so enthusiastically, only moments before can be lost, forgotten, as if it never existed. The focus keeps me awake... and alive.

Sitting... centeredness... reflection. These things keep me steady.

At the same time, if I become too settled, if I sit on the cushion for too long, or move too slowly (for whatever reason) through the day, a deadening lethargy comes on; my consciousness feels like it's shrouded; my senses go numb. Needless to say, this doesn't work for me either.

Action is necessary. While I am very fond of the meditative suggestion, "Don't just do something, sit there," sooner or later, either to stem off entropy, or obtain sustenance for the body, one must indeed move. At that point a decision is called for, and a direction required. I like the movement. I hunger for action.

When I sit, I feel the glow... When I run, I feel the fire.

What works... is the dance. Balanced between light and dark, action and non-action, running and waiting I seem to be finding my life.

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There are presently five ravens gathered outside my front door (I am NOT kidding!).

Day 15 - Four weeks to go...

This day feels like the moment of truth. This week feels like the real time for challenge.

For my "Monday morning meeting" with myself today, I went back through the goals I set two weeks ago (Goals I really do plan on posting here sometime soon) and considered what I've accomplished, what I have at least made headway on, and what i haven't even started.

I came to the conclusion, that actually, I'm doing a pretty good job.

But this week, it's time to turn up the heat. I feel like the two weeks previous have been a sort of "shake down cruise." I've been rooting around in the dirt of my psyche trying to get a better handle on what I feel like matters and how to make it come to life in the real world.

Today I start up on all the things I have successfully put off. I'm definitely a bit tired, but I'm also ready for more.

Now is when I get to see if all these grandiose plans and dreams have any legs of their own.