2018.04.18 - Day 35

Interesting entries yesterday. Storm’s question reminded me of Bodhidharma’s interview with the Emperor. The Emperor asked, "Who stands there before me?" Bodhidharma replied, "I don't know." The Emperor didn’t like that answer too much though :-)

I have received so many interesting links lately that I’m not getting time to read my books :-) One interesting idea came up but I’m not sure where – if you remember that the whole universe is staring at you behind and through other people’s eyes, merely being filtered by their personality that was formed from their nature and nurture, you don’t really need to practice having compassion for other people, it comes naturally. Of course, sometimes we need to practice self compassion, don’t we?

Watching a baby play so earnestly and intently with lids and cups and exploring how they might work. Thinking about how earnestly and intently I play with my projects and then about the whole metaphor of playing as Being.

Savoring.

An unintendingly musical day in which music sounded **so much better** than usual. From songs on my i-pod that I've listened to on the treadmill a thousand times, to songs that conjured my teen years in the 80s (reintroduced by my daughter through a film), there's been so much excitement and surprise.

Perhaps savoring in general, is having an effect. edited 22:37, 18 Apr 2018

I've been listing all the possible facets of my Imagined Future Self. There are a lot of candidates. And I realized that I needed to categorize each possibility in three ways:
1. How much a part of me is this right now, and how good am I at it?
2. How would I like to see this develop in the Imagined Future?
3. To what extent do I want to broadcast this, tell other people about it, and share it?

Just a few examples from many:
* I have worked in and played with flight simulation for very many years. I'm experienced and proficient but it's not something I want to develop much further, nor do I want to communicate with others much about it.
* I love humor. Always have. Want to keep it that way. Develop it even more. Share it with other people.
* I like philosophy and see room for deepening my understanding. I'm OK with exposing my interest as I think it will help me develop.
* I had a career as a software developer. In most senses I'm content to have handed on the baton to others nowadays and not do much further, though I'd be interested in knowing more about game development and sharing with others on that.
* Since moving to the United States 9 years ago, I have developed a secret passion: pro football! I'm going to maintain that as part of me, but I'm not going to tell anyone about it. Oh wait... whoops...

And so on. When looking through those and the many more possibilities I listed, it seems that topics I want to share/broadcast/expose my interest in are also ones that I want to identify with and develop, whether or not I already have a background in them.

There's one more exercise that I want to do on this before embarking on social networks. I'll probably share it tomorrow if it turns out to be helpful.

It's entirely possibly I will complete this 99 day exercise ahead of schedule, even after establishing a prototype for this Imagined Future Self on diaspora* and seeing how that goes. If so, I have a backup plan. I recall that I once did a book study for one of these 99 day projects. Hermann Hesse if I recall. I have another book on order, due this week, that I've wanted to read for several years. It may be of interest to others, so I could do a similar study for the rest of the 99 days. Which book? It's a secret. ;-)

This was a day when it was hard to focus, hard to find time for reflection. I tried to practice "one thing at a time" while on a walk outside, and when listening to others speak in a group session. My discursive mind kept breaking in and pulling my attention off onto side tracks and diversions.

Try again tomorrow.

It is so hard not to comment too much on these explorations, but I will say that if we always had this sort of thing going, FB and things like that would likely fall entirely away for me. One thing that happened at the very beginning in PaB, but fell away when there were so many sessions (which was the perfect thing to happen in its time), is that people were blogging. So 'logs' took a very personal approach. It is impossible to keep up with a lot of blogs and in-and-out details, since most of us are quite vigorous individual explorers, but the tone of 99 Days takes on that 'feeling'.

This is where the temptation is to come and capture and try to continue it, but that wouldn't be right. 99 Days can be focused and vigorous precisely because it has a (pretend?) start and end. Is a ritual.

Over the last few years I've made several attempts to personally branch a bit, find the ways that PaB would keep going for myself, even if it didn't in other ways or with other people. Every notion of sharing PaB in an organized way, has fallen flat for me. Earlier this year I woke with the realization, "I don't want to teach. I want to write." This felt so freeing. I just want to write about PaB while doing PaB while doing writing about PaB, etc.

I LOVE the title of Stevenaia's session from last night, too. Very nice conversation:

"Unintentional inspiration (is much of what PaB is)"

I completely missed this day:(
I put one foot in front of the other tho.
There was a moment when reading to a group of children. The book was The Enormous
Carrot. I had a co teacher with me who loves books and children so my reading took on a special aliveness. The children had made name tags for the hook where they hang their coats and many had put a carrot on it so when I started to read I pick that particular book off the shelf continue the theme.
The teamwork brings the carrot out of the ground and the reading introduced so many new words for pulling the carrot out:)This is where I enjoy reading...introduction of new words.Especially in a repetitive format. Then we read book called A Good Day where several animals have a bad thing happen but then good thing happens too.We talked about what might feel bad or good for them.It felt so wonderful really.