Meaning and Sahale

look what I found.

Sahale meets St. Teresa in Ecstasy

Bernini made me stop in my tracks. He made me see a part of myself that I didn't even know and he said what no one is willing to admit.

He was the first to show me that my seeking of physical transcendence and mental contentedness was only an arm of the place that, not my body and mind wished to be, but my very spirit and soul.

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The last couple weeks I was abroad in Europe and the last leg of our journey was in Rome. 

Rome, the holy city, yet that, once upon a time, was the pagan center of the Roman empire. 

Filled with churches on almost every block. Churches that now are more of museums for the trampling, loud, disrespectful tourist rather that places of worship. Small as a church might be next to the towering figure of the great St. Peter's, they house some of the greatest pieces in art history.

Such a church is Santa Maria della Vittoria. A very small church indeed, known only for its great masterpiece: "Ecstasy of St. Teresa" by Gian Lorenzo Bernini.

Commissioned by Cardinal Fredrico Cornaro for his family burial chapel, Bernini took the job because of his bitter failure attempting to build the a set of bell towers for St. Peters in 1639. His bell towers, ill designed, began to crack and shift only four months after they were constructed. This misstep caused the loss of his papal patronage, leaving him accessible by the Cornaro for their humble chapel, dedicated to the recently canonized St. Teresa of Avila. 

St. Teresa's reputation was infamous and her candidacy for sainthood had been a rocky one. Its no wonder a chapel hadn't yet been dedicated to her. There were many reasons, not least among them her raptures.

"A rapture came over me so suddenly it almost lifted me out of myself. I heard these words, 'Now I want you to speak with not men but angels'" 

"Bernini would have certainly known about St. Teresa. Her auto biography was a best seller in Catholic Rome. Like everyone else, he would've been startled by the earthly directness of her story. But above all he would have been electrified by those moments in which Teresa, in the most graphic words imaginable, describes what happens to her." (Schama, The Power of Art)

"I saw a long gold spear in his hand and there seemed to be a little flame at the tip of it. This he seemed to plunge into my heart repeatedly, until it reached into my very entrails. When he drew it out, I thought he was draw them out with it, and it left me utterly afire with a great love for God. The pain was so great that it made me moan over and over, and the sweet delight into which the pain threw me was was so intense that one could not want it to stop; or the soul to be contented with anything but God. It is not bodily pain, but spiritual, though the body does not cease to share in it somewhat -- even very much so" 

"It is an astonishing passage that the post-Freudian reader cannot help sniggering at -- doesn't the nun realize she is describing mainly sexual longings? Indeed, a few lines later she recognizes that it is like bodily seduction, but only as an opening or avenue for another kind of experience. Human sexuality or even the senses cannot have the primacy for Teresa or Bernini which they do for us. The shocking reciprocal movement with grab our attention so forcibly is not intended as sensational; it aims to jar us into another place entirely." (Harbison, Reflections on Baroque)

"Now, if there was one thing that Bernini was not, it was crude. He understood perfectly well that when Teresa wrote of her raptures, she meant the longing of her soul for a consummated union with God. 

But it was the way she wrote about it that made it seems as if her soul and her body were the same thing." (Schama, The Power of Art)

You can feel the longing through Bernini's unexpected interpretation of this supposedly spiritual experience..

Just as you can feel the longing in St. Teresa through her early life... at least by 1500's standards. In her youth, she had only two options, to marry or to become a nun. The fact that becoming an "old maid" came with only being 25 and that her early indiscretions, like sneaking off in the middle of the night to meet young men, had already given her a reputation.. convinced her that the life of the nun was the only thing that would keep her out of the fires of hell and give her soul eternal bliss.  Her desire to be good, to be godly despite herself drove her to this fate. A cold sexless life of a marriage to Christ in isolation.  

But even as a convented nun she fell in love with her confessor.

"although what she felt for him was indeed what she called "a love in Christ"it was also wholly unlike anything she ever felt for a woman. This she knew -- and still tried not to know-- when her three years as his penitent were ended..." (Lincoln, Teresa, A Woman)

An utterly accepting attitude of her solitude.. yet laced with her human desires. Desires she had full self knowledge of.. desires that had driven her to the convent in the first place. Driven her there not to deny herself spiritual or emotional satisfaction, but in the hope she could transform her shallow bodily desires into something on a higher playing field.

"Its no good pretending that ecstasy isn't a physical as well as a spiritual experience. The passion doesn't work through the body as well as the soul."(Schama, The Power of Art)

This simple statement stopped me in my tracks. 

If art breeds tolerance, I am a key example.

I have longed like St. Teresa for years. I have sometimes felt solitude in a way that I didn't think was quite fair. But seeing and hearing the story of St. Teresa, made clearer by the over-intensity of her spirit and desires made connections in my mind that I never had the perspective to see. This exciting unabashed juxtaposition of bodily rapture used to communicate spiritual transcendence was creepily relatable to me.

I realized two things from Bernini's ecstasy in stone.

A. Passions of the body are not always tactile, meant purely for physical pleasure or emotional relief. Some that use drugs, or sex, or cut themselves are merely seeking to feel something "spiritual". They only wish, like St. Teresa, to transcend what they are experiencing in flesh to find, they hope, a kind of ecstasy or spiritual connection. 

Though centuries apart, I could uncannily relate to St. Teresa's intensity. What is the higher thing? Life is hard, though harder for some rather than others.. For me it is more intense, definitely more angsty.. but I feel that we each have our "crutch". Our way of accessing some sort of spiritual satisfaction. Not spiritual as in a religious experience but "spiritual" as in the state of our spirit. For me, I realized that my method for searching for that "thing", that ecstasy of the spirit, was similar to most anybody's.

For me, fortunately, I didn't peripherally become an addict, commit suicide.. etc... because that happened not be my route, but still I was in pursuit of the same thing that some of the people who have become addicts, committed suicide, objectified others, hurt loved ones and damaged their own self esteem have done. All in the name of the "Ecstasy of St. Teresa", our own version of pure bliss.

Which leads me to the second thing I learned from St. Teresa of Avila. 

B. Passion doesn't work through the body .. or I would like to add, the mind.. as well as the soul. 

To make that ultimate contentedness for yourself, then, you need to engaged in experiences that don't just satisfy the body.. the mind.. your ego .. but satisfy the soul. You might have to stop trying to access things of the spirit through the finicky facade of the flesh to actually find that real thing you were trying to get to all along..

For me, real transcendence has come in inspiration from constantly exploring and learning.. sacred knowledge!! .. seeing new things, experiencing and learning new things. This, when channeled with the intensity of my personality.. creates a point of view that strangely.. is enough.

It doesn't have to come to you like St. Teresa, in a bodily rapture, a masochistic and painfully intense vision.. although it illustrates the point quite strongly..

It becomes about how you see life and understand it so you can hone what comes your way towards all that is truly spiritual for you within it. 

////////////////

Finally getting enough perspective to champion my own ineffective desires, I actually come away from St. Teresa with more tolerance and understanding than I did before.

It seems my false pride was in believing I had been victorious over those desires by outwardly appearing to abstain while still painfully wasting away consumed by its thoughts.
All my objections to others' addictions and "sins" were all based on my insecurity and weakness that I knew was lurking there somewhere.. knowing clairvoyantly in my bones and unconsciously protesting by pointing out everyone else's weaknesses. 

So now, this new understanding has taught me to change my focus all together. I can feel a kind of identification (on a smaller and less intense level) in St. Teresa to someone who longed for meaning and transformed that, not to deny herself, but to seek the bigger picture of what she really and truly needed. In this new light, of what spirituality actually means, I don't blame anyone for their version seeking what St. Teresa herself seemed to find through God, if that is what they seeking.. because it is clear that what she found was not as pure and holy a satisfaction, at least in our society's eyes, as one would think for a spiritual leader.. a canonized saint, yet it was something special and sacred none the less.

"... he (Bernini) has managed to make visible, tangible, actually, something we all, if we're honest know we hunger for ... the most intense convulsive drama of the body that any of us experience between life and death. Which is not to say that what were looking at is just a spasm of erotic chemistry. 

Its precisely because it isn't just that. Because it is somehow a fusion of physical craving and, choose your word, spiritual or emotional transcendence, that Bernini's "Ecstasy of St. Teresa" is a sculpture that possesses the beholder completely the longer we stare"

"So perhaps, when that 18th-century French connoisseur looked at Teresa and said 

"If that is divine love, I know it well." 

he wasn't making a sly joke at all, but doffing his hat at Bernini for using the power of  art to make the most difficult, the most desireable thing in the world: the visualization of pure bliss.."(Schama, The Power of Art)

And I would add, he was probably congratulating Bernini for instilling in his art something they percieved as so honest that it had the weight and power to inspire others to not only try attain it, but desire to attain it.

Not some nebulous, ethereal sort of satisfaction neither a shallow imitation..

but something real.

make your life a simple story. but well told..

Lots of things going through my head.

But overall, all good things.

I feel like I am a character in a really awesome novel. That I am the writer developing this character to be less and less lame and more and more awesome. Like I was one dimensional, and now I am adding new layers and new capabilities into this small frame. All things that I thought could only contain one set of specifically and genetically trained skills.

The novel has a lot of things happening in it! Some are things I want to happen, some are things that are beyond what I could have dreamed would happen, and some suck really bad. The funny thing is that now the things that suck really bad.. don't really suck at all. My perspective has kinda changed.

I mean that is the only thing you can control... you know. Your perspective on things. You can't really control most of what happens in life otherwise.

Its like my career counselor said before I left Chattanooga. "Sure bad things may have happened to you.. and you can acknowledge them and mourn... but at the end of the day, its about what you learn."

This moment. Being content in this moment.
Is anything bad happening to me in the moment? Can I tolerate this moment? What can I learn from this moment? What is awesome about this moment? What are the cool people around me in this moment? How can I help them and serve them in this moment?

This weird anxiety thing, that I want something beyond this moment and where I am, who I'm with.. is starting to disappear.. and the story of my life is starting to fade up from black. There are certain realities about that, that are depressing.. feeling like you lost time, are a little behind... but a lot of things about that, that are exciting.  People are always writing new pages in their novel and adding to what they have learned, so its not shameful to be working on it.. you always will be.

Ever since I started learning about film technique, I have started to see life like a film. I imagine how I would capture a scene of my life. What coverage I would use.. when or why I would punch in on a close up or when I would use a tracking shot to follow my movements through a scene. What are the important moments that would have to be captured and remembered? And I think, how beautiful! How beautiful my life is! There is a certain elegance to my journeys and discoveries as I would see them on film because I really think am a good character. I like building those scenes, sequences and acts of my film because I believe in myself and I know it will turn out good... in the end, even if it is hard along the way.

So Thanksgiving. Its making me excited. Because the person I am now is going to go on a journey. I am going to sit in the back of my parents car and watch the endless evergreen trees go by and make it up to the Skagit Valley to see my grandparents. The scene will show me reading a book, staring out at the river in their back yard and the ducks bobbing around within it. Me lying in my Dad's old bed at night and listening to the trains whistle by. Me smiling to myself as my uncle talks about the latest Robbie Rodriguez project and what failed project Joss Whedon has been writing. The way the light filters down the steps to my grandparent's spooky basement and the way the carpet feels on my feet. And who I am in those scenes? Every detail of who I am in those scene is picked, written by me. Will I playfully wear the berry lip gloss when I go to church, or be plain and "quaker" to not attract attention? Will I say that edgy joke or keep it inside and laugh silently? Will I help clean the dishes.. talk with my grandpa? Or ignore that opportunity.. and watch TV instead. Be present in every moment and choosing, maximizing every moment as much as I can control it.

For your choices don't really include what you envision and wish for your life. That's in the future. Your choices are what you have and who you are right now.


It is easy, when you are young, to believe that what you desire is no less than what you deserve, to assume that if you want something badly enough, it is your God-given right to have it....I was a raw youth who mistook passion for insight and acted according to an obscure, gap-ridden logic. 
-Jon Krakauer p.155 Into the Wild
(thanks Beau Sherman for posting)

Becoming aware of all of these youthful things within me, I choose to talk to my grandpa when I have a chance.. to enjoy the feeling of 70's carpet between my toes.. run down to the duck pond with my dog and scare the ducks.. watch Ronin with my uncle for the 3rd time, haha because he wants to give me a film education :) .. lie awake at night a hear the trains go by and remember the conversations me and brother would have late into the night there..

And enjoy that.

Whatever it is is, that's what life is all about:
a simple story, told very, very well.

groovy!!

another another groovy
  another another groovy by sahalemarja

 another groovy
  Another groovy by sahalemarja

fast food & cynicism

“For, after all, you do grow up, you do outgrow your ideals, which turn to dust and ashes, which are shattered into fragments; and if you have no other life, you just have to build one up out of these fragments. And all the time your soul is craving and longing for something else. And in vain does the dreamer rummage about in his old dreams, raking them over as though they were a heap of cinders, looking in these cinders for some spark, however tiny, to fan it into a flame so as to warm his chilled blood by it and revive in it all that he held so dear before, all that touched his heart, that made his blood course through his veins, that drew tears from his eyes, and that so splendidly deceived him!”

- Fyodor Dostoyevsky

Although pretty, this is kind of B.S.


I don't think ideals die. 
That's what we call cynical. Which I am avoiding.
But I'm not being magical either. Fydor, is partially right, childhood ideals die, because they are reinvented, much smarter.

Ideals are targets you aim at, not standards to live up to.
But that doesn't mean they die. Thanks but no thanks, Dostoyevsky. you are depressing.

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Today we filmed an interview with a couple in downtown Seattle.
The purpose of the interview was to get the perspective of a brain injury survivor (her) and a brain injury care taker (her husband) and how the film our company produced has helped them cope.

It was something I wasn't particularly excited about. Added pressure, performance.. and the couple's downtown condominium was so nice I felt like a schlub just entering it.

But it was a real lesson to me.

She sat next to her husband as he talked about how hard it had been for him to take care of her.. to help her through her difficulties and fall out from the injury. How much he compromised for her.

My co-worker, Joel, later said he felt bad for her.. "how could her husband say such blunt things to her face about how much of a burden she had been?"

But as I had stood there in the room, I was thinking: thank God!


This couple was legit! 

He could be open and honest in the room, with the understanding that his expression of frustration had nothing to do with her, that she wouldn't take it personally.
As he spoke about how it hard it had been, she reached over and took his hand in her own.
Clearly, she knew what he had been doing for her.
Clearly, it didn't hurt her feelings for him to express it.
She knew his context.
She really trusted him and loved him.

After 30 years of marriage, he told us that he loved her more now than he ever did.
He didn't express his frustrations at her and the burden she was, he just was expressing that it was natural for him to give up those things for her.
And now, He values and wants to protect her more than ever because he almost lost her in the accident that left her with those injuries.

It wasn't the words he said, it was what he meant by them that meant so much, because he had sorted reality in the midst of their tragedy.

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That is what I want! A relationship filled with "the tough stuff" Real and challenging and honest and dynamic and gritty and all that!

And to them, their relationship didn't limit their options. They seemed better together than apart. Able to get more done as a team than alone. Really solid people!

I've been thinking a lot about my cynicism, because apparently I am cynical..?. Which is a surprise to me. I've been bitter, but I never thought of myself as a cynic. Maybe its because so many people around me are. Its a lot easier to be pleasantly surprised when you set your expectations low. I guess, I figure, if I never expect to find love or a kindred spirit, or someone who is mature enough to not drag me down... then I can never be disappointed. But sometimes I actually wonder if it is possible.

I've had examples of couples that I look to, who are what I want. But something about them is that they are never "my people". I start to wonder whether cool people value marriage the way they used to.. or if all the people that are interesting to me, sexy to me.. are rotten individuals.

I think one part of my theory is true. It has to do with fast food.

I think I get smoke thrown in my eyes from "fast food individuals". They are super attractive and interesting! Because fast food people have a lot of apparent value and very quickly. They are quick to compliment, seduce, give attention, give intimacy... Friends or lovers, doesn't matter. You need something, they deliver. yes... I always end up feeling sexy and smart .. who wouldn't be addicted to that feeling? But I have to realize its not happiness. I feel disgusting in the end, like eating way too much cotton candy.

It goes back to my theory of apparent value and invisible value. Apparent value feels so good! And its really easy because things that are apparent values in people, they aren't afraid to give out wholesale. I mean, if your apparent value is being willing to have promiscuous sex, it also means that sex and the person you give it to, can't really mean much to you either!

Yet, I see a lot of people fall for and then attribute a lot meaning towards these "fast food relationships" that aren't built on much. WHY?? And even more disturbing, red flags that I never see in healthy relationships, are rampant.

Its an oxymoron, people. Really it is.

When the fast food doesn't taste like the real meal, or doesn't sustain you like a real meal would and could... you aren't allowed to feel bad or get angry! .... But people do!

I mean, I don't want to be around someone who makes me feel bad about myself and I don't want to date someone I'm not attracted to (attraction is a lot more than looks btw) But my experimenting with keeping people around "to make me feel good" has already yielded enough heart break and cynicism to not like what it makes me. The secret is no one can make you happy from the outside.. It has to come from within. And, like I said, how can you ever do that if "fast food culture" destroys and mutilates a strong inward construction. If you live with "fast food love" for any period of time, it won't be long before it will be your only definition of love at all.

And through that, not only does it breed cynicism but it tears down the work you have done to be the awesome person you are. The constant high of the relationship is not worth its distortions of what a truly healthy and positive relationship could be. It is not worth the mind f%^k you have to dig yourself out of to be a functional person.

And if you settle for fast food relationships, remember, that's what you'll attract.

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I do want to have strong bonded relationships. I don't wanna settle and I can't wait to fall in love! And, Lord of heaven and earth, do want to have sex! haha...

But here's the kicker, honestly, I don't know if I'll want to get married yet, because I don't know if I'll ever meet anyone I want to get married to.


So truly, my journey is not really about finding the one! 
Its really just about being happy.

ME HAPPY! 

It's not like the rule is:


DONT DO THIS 
and
this 
and this 
and this


So you can fake being an awesome person and get married, have kids and make everyone think you have your crap figured out. 


For me, personally, its about ACTUALLY finding happiness and not sabotaging happiness through relationships. It about creating that meaning, not just for yourself, but for others....


and if I happen to create something inside me internally that externally turns into those other things and goals I really want in life.. (like marriage) that would be amazing :) In fact, I think that is the only way I can really have those things.

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I guess I've known all of this theoretically, but only in the last year have I really needed the extra strength these ideas provide to be successful in the bigger ways I been forced to grow. And fear of being alone, thinking that no one else values the things I do, or will ever have the same standards... has held me back too... you know, heart over head as usual.

I guess that's why I've (in)voluntarily chosen to be alone at choice moments.

Being alone is scary. 

I didn't realize how not a loner I am, until I found myself a forced loner.

But not dealing with my issues that make me susceptible to the attraction of "fast food solutions" and "fast food people" in my life.. just makes it easier for me never to meet the legit people, who could rescue me from my pattern of cynicism...which is definitely scarier. 

As many jacked up, stupid people there are... there are as many smart, motivated people who will take to time to invest in a "non-fast food relationship" and the "invisible value" (as I call it) that is revealed over time. Although the negative experiences always seem to weigh heavier on the mind, I can't let it build a "giving up" mentality within me, or a rampant cynicism that will just turn-off those who could provide that real love and support to me and visa versa.

So. I'm not going to be mean. I am not going to shut the door in people's face. I am not going to stop loving people and having faith in them. (And most people aren't 100% fast food anyway, they just act "fast food" despite themselves haha :) even me... sometimes)

People who are on that path to becoming "fast food" or treat me like "fast food" will simply: 
get ignored.

They won't feel any of my newly faith-based warmth, love or support. All these awesome assets and strengths I have finally developed and can offer....will just mysteriously dry up.


Easier said than done..

Because, yes, I may get less positive feedback.. and yes, I may feel less stroking of the ego. No more attention and flattery.. I may feel alone & flying 100% solo sometimes... But in reality and in the long run, what I need is my own stronger voice to tell me to "buck up the f- up" and "become the person you admire" in the meantime.
Develop some inner strength and backbone..

So when the time comes, I'll be ready to meet the person who faced their fears and did the same.

And I won't have to be cynical any more!
Because we will believe the same things..
and it will be awesome!!

Sherman Alexie and Chris Van Allsburg

On Sunday I went to the Seattle Library as part of my making-Seattle-cool campaign, to hear Sherman Alexie and Chris Van Allsburg speak about their new collaborative book (with short stories from other famous authors) called "The Chronicles of Harris Burdick".

I particularly wanted to go to this lecture because Sherman Alexie wrote the script to Smoke Signals, the film that my production company produced, and I want to check out his work and his thought process.

I didn't know what to expect. Except I was hoping for inspiration!


Sherman Alexie turned out to be a stoic, nonthreatening.. but very interesting looking man. I knew he was of Native American descent, so I wasn't surprised to see his rich black hair or hear his slight native accent. Chris Van Allsburg was a hero from my childhood.. being as one of my favorite books was "The Polar Express". 


What I found is that, yes, they are smart individuals, yes, they are students of the world and know a lot of things... have studied a lot of things... but what impressed me most about going to hear them talk, is that they were strong personalities and had strong, sometimes shocking opinions.. and a very strong point of view. 


They conducted the talk in an interview style format, and sadly the interviewer was garbage.. she wanted to talk more than the writers.. and she tripped over words. You knew what she wanted to say before she could get it out! She took forever to get there.


In contrast, Van Allsburg and Alexie were master communicators. They knew what they believed and knew how to say it. Had the courage to say it. They were like giant planets. It was like Jupiter and Saturn were sitting at that table and their massive gravity of ideas were sucking everybody towards them. It made them compelling. 


It was interesting, maybe cynical, their views on children. The conversation kind of hovered there because of the nature of Chris Van Allsburg's format of writing.


Their ideas of a non-innocent childhood. That kids are the most narcissist human beings possible. That kids can sniff out condescension way fast that adults. Kids don't need to be protected from ideas in writing, adults do. Especially the idea that kids' imagination is new and untainted, and as we grow we start emulating to learn.. and then we start emulating the media and loose our point of view. We have to later, as adults, reclaim that point of view. 


I loved that they talked about remix culture. Which is basically taking existing things that are old and juxtaposing them to make something new and creative (e.i. Pride and Prejudice and Zombies) And how horrible that is. Their thought is that we should be creating the new Pride and Prejudices, instead we are mixing in zombies and calling it art, new and ingenious. 


It was thrilling to hear some intellectual thoughts! Some strong ideas communicated well. A new window to look at life from.


Sherman Alexie may be a hard person to get along with.. I couldn't figure him out from a distance, but he sure has strong ideas. I could see why his stories stick out from the bunch, why he might be who he is today. His ideas were also effective because the spoonful of sugared humor each one went down with. He couldn't speak about his opinions on Native Americans without a large dose of very dry humor. He didn't take himself too seriously.. Which I appreciated.


The book they were talking about was equally haunting and interesting. Chris told this story before he talked with us about the book:


A book editor came to Chris Van Allsburg in 1984, at a book signing, and told him that he had some illustrations that he should see. He thought they were so compelling and harkened to Chris' work enough that they would not be easily forgotten. 


The book editior, Peter Wenders, told Van Allsburg, that a man named Harris Burdick had come to him in 1954 with these drawings as samples of his work.. drawings that had stories attached to them that he would bring in for critique the next day. He was thrilled at the idea of maybe getting them published!


The next day, however, Harris Burdick never showed up and Peter Wenders never heard from him again.


When Chris Van Allsburg came to Peter Wenders office the next day he saw what he had meant. He knew that they had to be published and he did... but Harris Burdick has never come forward, and no one can seem to find anyone who ever knew him.


This new book "The Chronicles of Harris Burdick" is a collection of authors, brought together by Van Allsburg to tell stories inspired by the Burdick images. Stories that might of been if Harris Burdick had ever come back to the book editor that day in 1954 to publish them.


Take a look at the images yourself.. the are beautiful. dark. haunting. 

Huge Ephiphany: Professionalism

I am completely drained tonight.
Utterly.

But I finally had a break through. A major epiphany.

Professionalism in life is so important.

The natural place for professionalism is in the work place, of course.
Sahale is sheepish in finally believing this, since I originally attempted to fight this..

I know that professionalism is mainly employed to get stuff done. To put your own personal issues aside for a bigger goal. To be productive and then to really be able to feel proud and happy about things you have been able to accomplish.

But on that note... aren't there so many other things in life we want to be productive other than our work life? We want our relationships and our personal life to be productive as well.

That got me thinking that we can't just be professional with our work life selves, we have to use professionalism in all areas of life to make them equally flourish and productive.

We have to be  professional friends.
We have to be professional spouses.
We have to be professional, sometimes, even with ourselves.

We can't bring all our messed up shit to to the table an expect to get anywhere.
We have to deal with our own issues and solve them to be any kind of productive with others or sometimes make head way with our ourselves (our own decisions and interactions with life).

That is a generalization.
But I remember in high school.. the number one way I would characterize people's relationships would have to be: completely unprofessional. 
All they were out to get was someone to hang their troubles on.. to be a comforter .. a pacifier.

Which is great! If you are looking for a temporary high.. a specific need to be filled.. and an un-dynamic, immature sorta creation between the two of you.

I definitely know that, that is what I was looking for at the time.
Someone to tell me everything would be alright and to wipe my tears away.

Good thing I didn't get it, because, although that's what I wanted.. it wasn't what I needed.
What I really needed, and truth be told, therefore should have wanted, is respect, love, friendship.. all of which are only really accessible when someone is really practiced at life and will be a professional with you. And equally what other people deserved from me was just the same, not some broken girl who needed her ego stroked all the time.

Professionalism is now quite a cornerstone of my philosophy.

But in learning that, how stupid have I been!

Yes, my number one blind spot has left me with very little faith in others.
Very skeptical about who they are and how they are going to treat me.

Are they using me to prop themselves up? or are they going to be a professional at life, and treat me with honor, respect, love, honesty, faith... all the really valuable stuff?

And truly people should develop trust with you.
People should work to create that trust over time.

But in my workplace my issues created a rift in my professionalism.

My issues led me to assumptions and expectations of situations and people that were destructive of the process .. negative and unhelpful.

I lacked faith, against my intuition.

How will I ever even find out what work can get done I don't even give it a good chance.... a good shot?  How will I know if I maintain my lukewarm hesitancy?

I can't grow trust and productiveness unless I am 100% present.. 100% professional.

First of all, reality, its my job. I'm being paid to be this 100% supportive person.

But there is something more than that, that I should be paying attention too.

My boss is not superman. I cannot put him on a pedestal and hold him to that standard, because we are all human. Also, I don't know him well enough to see the context of the bigger picture in which his life operates and the all of "why" of what he does.



But this much I know and completely admire (want to be like):

-really listens to what others have to say and considers it really thoughtfully. When you work with him, he is present and doesn't act as if he would rather be somewhere else, with someone else.


-is patient. Gives people time and space to learn lessons. Doesn't tear them down. Carefully considers the words he uses with them to not hurt or offend them. Has faith in them and expects the best.


-tries to understand others holistically. Know their context and where they are coming from. Finds value in everybody and always learns something from them. Then supports them .. gives them real tangible leverage in their life. Creates really meaningful relationships with people that are positive. Treats them as if they are incredibly valuable.



-wades through others' issues for the sake of something bigger (namely: the work) and doesn't let them convolute the goal or hurt him enough to slow his own progress or work. Inner strength..

-has an opinion that has real reference points and uses it to support and direct projects to positive and productive ends!! Keeps track of reality and applies it as a very powerful tool.


-takes every task seriously and finds a personal stake in it to propel and motivate himself to finish it with the utmost standard of quality. 

-student of the world. seeker of knowledge and doesn't use that knowledge as a weapon.

-treats me with the most respect that I have ever been shown... anywhere. Trusts me with really important work and responsibilities! Things I knew I could do AND didn't know I could do. I only did them because he believed in me first.

 

Shouldn't I have faith that he is a professional? After all this.. with obvious evidence of a standard of professionalism.. in his approach to others and the respect he has for their work...

All evident signals are pointing to something of great worth. Something, that by my experience, is really really rare and really really valuable. Definitely should be worth investing in and supporting.

I know he is capable of great and amazing things. I just need to follow that belief up with strength of action!

So! This new-week resolution is to be 100% present. 100% the servant. 100% supportive.
100% cheerful. 100% me. (hopefully the best version, I can be)

Represent, like my boss has, the world I believe in. 
And be the strong, awesome, motivated, hard-working, kind person I know is inside me!

CUT my cynicism. 
Stop talking that way.
Stop thinking that way. 

And see what happens! Who knows..

Recording is awesome..

FIRST! check out the sweet binder covers I made for my work projects! Sorry for the title censoring..

Okay. haha.

"being neurotic is okay but being weak isn't. You are neurotic, not weak.."

I was thinking about Seattle. I need a role model. Something to shoot for that is awesome.

I'm glad I have a moment this morning to get my thoughts down.

I've been working on this project with Stephen Thomas Cavit, local composer and recording engineer in Seattle and I have finally got to the point where I am believing what we are working on!

It so thrilling to feel like someone is walking towards you and engaged in collaboration and working with interesting ideas.. figuring out problems.. making stuff happen!
Standing in front of that mic, in his recording studio, is so exciting.

But time and time again, I keeping botching it because there is too much on my mind!

I was watching PBS the other night and they were doing a special on Steve Jobs. Did you know that Steve Jobs was way beyond a millionaire at 23?

I'm 23 right now.

The interviewees kept commenting...

"ohhhh, he wasn't the typical teenager... the thoughts he was thinking were sooooo interesting and compelling" .. "ohhhhh he wasn't a typical 20 year old. The things he was doing were so smart and awesome..."

Damn it! I want to be that smart! Not that rich, or as much of an asshole, but really smart.

I feel so stupid a lot of the time. I feel like my shrunken 23 year old brain is incapable of anything good unless I am a weirdo like Steve Jobs.

And I really want to be a weirdo.

"You're neurotic, not weak. Being neurotic is okay but being weak is no good," Stephen Cavit told me in the studio, after botching a bunch of harmony takes. "There is going to be a learning curve with everything you do, but you can handle it."

Oh. my. Lord. I closed my eyes and took a deep breath.

"I am only neurotic. Not weak. Not weak. I am not a loose trigger, I am reliable.. I am trustable.. I am good... I am smart..."

Still, after the inward pep talk, I totally messed up the harmony part... again. haha

But point well taken. I am young but I am powerful. I can do the things I wanna do with out messing it up with my 23 year old shrunken brain. And all this negative blah about how I could be so much wiser and better, is actually not helping me be better!! .. but ya know, being in a place like this is truly energizing and spurring of real action because of what the reality of life demands not what it theoretically demands.

Apparently I can handle reality, when it is laid in front of me! yes! When I know what's going on, where the walls lie.

Mother of pearl! I know I am a fun person!! I am magnetic in my own way.. I love people, in my own way. And in a setting with open-ness where everything is on the table and we are getting stuff done, unafraid to experiment and bounce ideas around... I feel like an integral cog to this awesome thing.

I think that is the key between me and the world. Between me and and being a fully functionally brained individual.

To start doing now:

1. Stop any trace of self censoring my personality.
2. Stop EVER hesitating on my intuition.
3. Walk TOWARDS people or stand still, rather than backing away. Be who I wanna be with them and stop playing games.
4. Invest in completely enjoying the little things in life, but day to day only. No stress about possibly lacking futures or screwy pasts.

Just help myself to feeling in every moment as empowered as when I step in front of that microphone in Stephen Cavit's studio.

Good. now. great.

Kept thinking.. YES! I can be on my way to making Seattle awesome. Find the legits who I wanna have around and become what I wish Seattle was.

Like this guy, my new role model. This is where its at!

Who the heck is this dude? The guy who gets to sit next to Eddie Vedder. He isn't actually Eddie Vedder, is he even someone of importance? I don't know.. haha He's famous right? More importantly... he does cool stuff?


haha that's who I wanna be. That weird person.

still frame taken from the movie, "Singles".. set in Seattle!

mornings suck.

why can't I forgive myself?

Its hard to confront yourself anytime of the day,  but getting up in the morning to confront your life is definitely harder.

While I hate forgiving myself, I prefer to torture myself for the mistakes and bad things I do, its not productive to do so, in the least.

It used to be so bad that I couldn't even take critique or an unkind word. As a kid I would go off and cry about it.. the teacher or classmate didn't need to say anything more, I would already punish myself waaaaaaaaaaaaay worse than they ever could.

In a working enviroment, however, I had to learn that just because someone says a harsh word to you, doesn't mean they hate you personally. And I ushered in the new age of Sahale not taking things personally.

But I also neglected that in the years of taking things immensely personally and sensitively I had developed the defense mechanism of being super accommodating so that I would never have to get in conflict with others or hear negative words towards me. I feared, too, that, even though I was loyal as a dog and valued my friends immensely, that they didn't feel likewise and would abandon me at my slightest push back.

I looked up narcissism today in the dictionary..

Narcissistic traits

Thomas suggests that narcissists typically display most, sometimes all, of the following traits:^[19]

• An obvious self-focus in interpersonal exchanges
• Problems in sustaining satisfying relationships
• A lack of psychological awareness (see insight in psychology and psychiatry, egosyntonic)
• Difficulty with empathy
• Problems distinguishing the self from others (see narcissism and boundaries)
• Hypersensitivity to any insults or imagined insults (see criticism and narcissists, narcissistic rage and narcissistic injury)
• Vulnerability to shame rather than guilt
• Haughty body language
• Flattery towards people who admire and affirm them (narcissistic supply)
• Detesting those who do not admire them (narcissistic abuse)
• Using other people without considering the cost of doing so
• Pretending to be more important than they really are
• Bragging (subtly but persistently) and exaggerating their achievements
• Claiming to be an "expert" at many things
• Inability to view the world from the perspective of other people
• Denial of remorse and gratitude

I know, I know... I don't think I am as bad as a narcissist... but LOW AND BEHOLD.. how many traits that I thought were being good to people and keeping myself out of trouble are actually EGOTISTICAL and NARCISSISTIC tendencies.

It is a fine line between appropriate humble behavior and starting to dip into narcissism. And as you read in the last post, the last thing I want to be is a small person, who does small things.

So, I experiment, which is super scary to me. It means I will have to forgive myself again and again, and hopefully others will to. Because I don't know how to stand up for myself appropriately. Its my blind spot.

Sure I can feel shame that I feel like a smart and capable person, but have this HUGE blind spot.. I can try and hide it away and deny that its there. OR I can deal with it, for the cause of being the bigger person, that I stubbornly to want to be.. and once done, never have to worry or deal with it again.

So, I am going to have to be able to forgive myself more. I can't have this weird jail cell hesitancy to do so. This weird self-punishment thing I do.... that. has. to. go.

I have to believe that kindred spirits and people who care about me, will forgive me too. And... they won't disappear because they discover that I am a human.

Really I am only becoming more human.

The person I want to always appear to be... The image I wanna prop up --------------------->

 

Who I really become on the inside by doing that -------------------->

stubborn as a mule.

I am working everyday to be a better person, but I noticed something..

The biggest thing that inhibits me from being that better person, is the very small person inside of me. The person that is easily wounded, quick to get angry and who is very easily defensive, slow to be vulnerable, distrusting, afraid to look silly or flawed....

The biggest thing I can do to prevent myself from getting in the way of myself, is to be a bigger person

Which IS hard. Because life instinctively makes you want to fight or flight.


Luckily, people are awesome. They can be awesome. You don't always have to fight or flight with them. Still, I catch that small person inside of me being cowardly, having little faith, back-biting... generally being very mean and generally doing things that only very small people do.

People's lives are hard enough without me making it harder. If I could kill that little person inside of me, I could be reborn as a better version of myself.

I don't believe that our native self is good. I don't think that our native self wants to even be good for our own selfish good. Our native self isn't good enough. You have to want to be better than you are. Be who you wish you were.. or at least aspire to the ideal.

It doesn't directly benefit you. But if you kill that little version of yourself, it does make your life richer, I think, by virtue of contributing to the world, feeling of worth, and creating strong and steadily happy relationships around you. Killing the smaller version of yourself, takes the focus off of you and helps you finally be aware of how you can help others or let others feel valuable by helping you.

I sigh and pine at such a future. But who I am has always been the most powerful part of who I am! That I don't back down, I'm in it for the long haul; and that I think, analyze, and break down everything. I can't give up now, because if I do I will reject the good that is in me.

So I plod on, as I hope you all are doing.
It will work out in the end.