Found in Passing

I saw this in passing and thought it was worthwhile to remember, "Life may be sad, but it's always beautiful."

Living in the Pacific Northwest with it's many consecutive winter days of overcast and rain, I've always tell folks on those days, especially after several days, sometimes a week or more, in a row, "It's always sunny, the clouds only hide that fact."

It's all relative to where you are in time and place and your view of life and the world.

The above photo is a super moon LED lamp.

"This captivating lamp designed by Nosigner (Eisuke Tachikawa) represents the Super Moon, the biggest full moon in a cycle of 18 years. After the tragic earthquake in Japan, many of the Japanese prayed to the Super Moon for hope. According to Nosigner, this lamp is a symbol of the moon's "light of hope". This lunar lamp is composed of LED lights and is an accurate presentation of the moon. In fact, the lamp is based off of the lunar orbiter, Kaguya's 3D topographic data of the moon."

Citation from My Modern Met.

Feeling Good

I know when I'm feeling good, meaning the body is between episodes of digestive problems. I know because I listen to a lot of music, nearly constantly during the day. And I dance, badly, but still the body feels good. I don't watch TV, sit on the couch and wonder and ponder why life is shit, I don't take naps or want to take naps, and I don't eat much if at all.

I get up and out the door, even in the cold and rain to do anything but sit, except here in front of the computer being productive, again. Life has its good days. Just too few and too far between. But I don't hate myself so much and the thoughts and feelings to quit fade behind the sound of music, the world outside and life.

My life. Not bad some days, better than the rest.

Falling Behind

When I retired in December 2005, a year or two ahead of my original planned retirement date, I pushed it forward when I realized I could afford to live, as I thought then, comfortably on my annuity with the small annual increases as has always happened and after is was made clear to me my boss had targeted me for retirement soon to fulfill his mandate from his boss to reduce staff.

Faced with being a victim of office politics and circumstances which would have eliminated my job and face a demotion with the same salary for two years before it was also reduced, I decided to say, "Fuck 'em" and walk out to do what I wanted than get up every day to the pressure from an asshole boss. I had already been passed over for promotion a few years earlier, one wanted by the staff, for political reasons, because I don't do well being a "yes" person.

As it turned out I thought I was ok financially. Not great as one of the three plans had to be slowed to a crawl while I worked on the other two, my photography and my photography guide. The third is still progressing albeit slower as recent health issues have cost me a fair amount and still not have a diagnosis let alone a treatment plan and as the drugs for the goal has caused its own health issues and problems.

But then the recession and more so the politics in Washington DC over how to get out of it, between the indignant Tea Party, the acquiescence of the Republicans to them, and the compitulation of the Senate majority leader and the President to both of them at the expense of the American people, namely the middle class and especially the poor, elderly and others, happened. The 99%'ers got screwed.

The failures of the President and the Democrats has, with my own decisons to continue to push forward with my plans, has overwhelmed me finanically. I didn't expect my annuity to be frozen by this President for two years and likely will be for another two to three more years. I didn't expect my health insurance premiums to nearly double in that same period - no thanks to the above mentioned groups and individual. I didn't expect the cost of living to push me into this situation.

And so the combination of my finances, income and health has excerbated my feelings about getting old with my third goal to leave me immensely overwhelmed by everything around me and everything else. All the good things I planned and was working on were larger than my ability to keep pace let alone advance beyond a few things. And it's really not the money but the work and life.

For every one thing I work on there are several more major projects waiting for me around my home. The photo guide ground to a halt over the summer for the other projects and now I'm 3 months behind just keeping current with little interest to work on it let alone catch up and then focus on the other undone pieces of the guide and then work on the book.

My photography stopped due to health issues and chasing an diagnosis and hopefully a treatment plan to get my body back and then my life. Neither has happened as the medical professional either don't know, can't determine, don't seem to care, or dismiss the symptoms as age and other "normal" factors and as those issues has left me less healthy and fit and excerbated my Dysthymia into a depression.

The dominoes fell over and pushed me over a mental cliff with little energy and interest to stand up and walk out of the canyon I'm currently in with no obvious trail to get out and then on with life and all those projects sitting around my mind and in my home. I'm feeling so far behind I'm not sure where to start anymore.

And yet I know the answer, if only my body didn't hurt, would work, and not feel tired almost all the time. And time doesn't appear to be on my side right now, or so it feels as the days go slowly by and then appear to disappear behind me in the mirror of time. I have grown to like my life but hate my body. Not the aging so much, although being slower and less agile hasn't felt good, but the look I've always disliked about me is worse in my eyes, getting old(er).

And I'm falling behind in life and my life every day, spiraling away from where I planned, wanted to be and expected to be. And how to change my course in life and myself is the task at hand as that too is falling behind. It's like standing somewhere in the Sahari without a map or compass, and all I see is sand and desert and all I feel is the heat and the wind. And all I want to do is sit down and let the desert absorb into time, its time.

At least I won't fall behind anymore.

Found in Passing

"I discovered that I am tired of being a person. Not just the person I was, but any person at all."  - Susan Sontag

But I'm not

I'm not someone else, and I can't be someone else. I'm still me. No matter how much I want to wish and hope. Change is possible but only within what I've been given, who I am, and only within what's possible, who I can be. Anything else or beyond is just hope and wishful thinking, unattainable except in my mind, and often my dreams.

Better or happier

I was thinking out loud again, the advantages of living alone. Like someone is going to hear me let alone answer. And the old saying, if either happens, you're in trouble. Anyway, I was wonder if it's better to be or feel better or happier. Feeling better is relative to where we are mentally and how we think. Feeling happier is the state of the feeling, relative to where we are emotionally and how we feel.

Feeling Better or Good

Feeling better or feeling good. Big difference. Feeling better and feeling good. Not so much but can be very much so. It's all, as they say, relative to where you were, where you are and where you want to be, or at least should be relative to be being "normal" again. Or at least that's the way I feel, or wish I feel.

Things

Sometimes I have things to do and sometimes I am doing things. That's normal, we all have both things, to do and doing, but it's when the doing slows and then stops and the to do becomes the only things that I know I'm in trouble, mentally. This is due to two reasons.

First, I like to focus on a few things at a time and really only one for short periods of days to a few weeks, like the photo guide updates and additions. I do the same for my photography projects where I can set the studio up and shoot for days or take several photo trips and then spend days processing images, or set up the photo card print and production work and produce hundreds of photo cards.

Second, I feel overwhelmed when there are too many things, more than a few, to do, like working on the photo of the Minolta equipment to sell, putting the (700) records into iTunes, the photo guides, cleaning out my storage area, and so on. It's what's happening now, all those and more.

And when that happens I don't do much if anything. So I often park those undone things out of sight, like boxes of records, shelves of photo equipment, etc., but it doesn't remove them from my mind. And there they sit piled around places at home and in my mind, where the weight just overwhelms me and I quit.

On top of that I have the upcoming holiday season, like Christmas cards, something I didn't do much last year and have a lot of photo cards to make for myself and gift boxes. I have a number of print to produce and get framed. I have stacks of slides on the light table to scan into the computer with the other scanned and unprocessed images already there.

I have dozens of photo galleries to develop for the Website and some to convert to the newer style viewer. In short, just too much photography work let alone the rest of everything else looking at me every day. It's where everywhere and everytime I turn around there is a thing waiting for my attention and work.

And the guilt only accumulates where all my doing things become things to do.