Saturday XLVII: Complicated • 29 March 2008

Doing some kitchen-practice lately. Friday nice and simple, while the Editor sat at his desk in the adjacent room and, well, edited. His focus is amazing now—locked in, supersmart, mind on target.

On the new year I threw away my anger at the discipline—for its locked-up blindfolded inability to make good on its promises to my friends. But even from the perspective of gratitude, I’m still more realized on a mat than at a screen. It’s so clear when we practice this way—him with the words, me with the body. Each in our element, and sharing a certain clear-mindedness even if the elements are different.

As for my own scholarly-element. Practice sets a high goddam standard. What do you do?

My earlier work was quantitative: statistical modeling. Clean data, nice punchlines. The stuff I’m doing now is a mucky interpretive bunch of historical whatever. More information, not so much of the beautiful clarity.

This reminds me: emotions can be complicated. Holding more than one strong emotion—holding it in your body—about some idea, or action, or person. It’s better than feeling nothing, but what comes up is this impulse to cancel out enough of the conflicting emotion so that there can be a single, uncomplicated pillar of “I’m right.” I am, but also strive to be, a simple girl who knows her own mind and acts on it without sabotage or doubt. Reduce the noise between inner sensation and outer expression.

But…. There’s a lot of emotional complexity in my life now: many-sided subjects and people. Can I deal with that with soft eyes and some peripheral vision, and cope with the many-sidedness of things? I love clarity and minimalism inside and out, but sometimes I have to up and admit that I am complicated and even moreso is the world. What I’m doing here is more than solving for X.

Links:

● An ashtangi has been freelancing (see bottom left). Tova…?

● Do you have a cool walk? Laban movement analysis figures that out.

● NYT: Yes, running can make you high. Duh.

● Scientific American: Careful, Meditation can make you kind.