4,000 Weeks

I’ve just finished a book with that title by Oliver Burkeman - the sub-title is Time Management for Mortals. Four Thousand weeks describes the amount of time someone has if he/she lives to be 80. My own life is now 4,260 weeks. That seems like quite a lot until it is compared to a universe of 13.8 billion x 52. As a cosmic comparison, it puts me in my place.

At the beginning of 2021 I promised myself that I would post something twice a week during the year. I fell off just before Christmas with some other activities taking precedence - and then felt guilty. Why? It’s not as though this site has many readers. It’s a perfect example of how we set goals for ourselves and then beat ourselves up for what we don’t do in comparison with what we do accomplish.

I received a Christmas gift that is an excellent choice for someone in in the 4,000 week plus category. It invites one to reflect on one’s own life by writing an answer to a question that is sent once a week. At the end of the year, it is compiled in a book. My father wrote a good family history exploring the ancestors so that let me off the hook. but this is a good assignment.

Burkeman has many ideas and the book is worth a read for anyone like me who has read too many books on time management. Perhaps the most important one is that we are time - time is spent not managed - especially in terms of working too hard toward some future that is unknowable. Another idea I liked - perhaps a better one for a retiree than someone actively working to earn a living - is to abandon a “to-do” list - which I have kept religiously using the Bullet Journal format - for a “done” list. It’s more honest and allows one to see whether time is being spent on things that really matter.

I’ll end 2021 - pandemic ridden as it is with cancelled travel plans - with an intention to write the blog once a week - and the memoir above for the other weekly assignment. In both cases the real gift is being here on earth to do them.

Happy New Year

Resilience in Pandemics

Mainstream press is full of ideas to keep us sane when we add a holiday to the stress of living in a pandemic for the better part of two years. Some of the ideas are mainstream, but one is quirky enough that you might enjoy giving it a try.

• Take a set period every day to do things that you personally enjoy. You can set your own time limit - even 15 minutes of painting or playing the piano will help.

• Chat with supportive people - in person if possible, but online if that is the only option. Strengthen those bonds and avoid people who weaken them.

• Find moments for optimism - even among those that contrast with them.

• In contrast, give yourself permission to feel stressed when it happens and is real. You don’t have to feel guilty about your feelings. The good thing is that feelings come and go.

• One place near the door for everything you need when going out is a big help. Mask, umbrella, keys, purse, credit cards - seeing the items will remind you to take just what you need and make the load lighter.

• Organize your fridge. Wasted food makes us feel guilty as well as costing us money. A Lazy Susan is a good device. So are glass containers that stack so you can see what is inside them. A whiteboard can remind you of what is left over. A generic shopping list pinned to the door means you can circle items for the next trip.

• Do a short workout - seven minutes will refresh you. Call it an exercise snack.

• Maybe you do all those things already. But here is something different. Watch Jellyfish:

Gratitude

I’m cheating by one day to try to post twice a week - but the last week was a busy one. As the American Thanksgiving weekend winds down and the news that Black Friday online shopping was lower than in previous years, perhaps we are discovering that being grateful is more satisfying than acquiring more stuff. In fact a recent article written by a physician and published in Fast Company backs that up. Here are ways to be ensure it. Nearly all religions and philosophies tell you the same things:

• Be thankful for the beauties of nature and its constancy. The sun rises and sets each day

• Compared to other living species we have been blessed with consciousness.

• Good conversation enlivens us.

• Love and encouragement of friends and family assures us.

• Giving thanks in the morning and evening reminds us of how fortunate we are.

• Writing thank you notes reinforces our gratitude

• A journal allows us to record the good things that happen.

• Seeking experiences rather than just buying things gives us pleasure.

• Making gratitude a habit helps us through sorrow and challenges - so that we can remember that there are other good things waiting for us.

Playing with Words

As I wait for the final results of COP 26, I have to find something else to write about to end the week. I am taking a course online and the subject yesterday was “Interiority” - not a word that I ever use. That sent me on a search which I posted on the course site - and I’ll share something of it here:

I'm going to have some fun with words.  I became curious about the term, "interiority", because before starting the course - or perhaps before reading Thomas Berry - it was not part of my everyday vocabulary.  Canadians, like me, straddle both British and American English.  I started with the hard copy of my Concise Oxford Dictionary published in 1982.  The word wasn't there.  I moved on to Collins British dictionary online to find this: "the quality of being focused on one's inner life and identity".  If the Oxford English Dictionary had allowed me to see when the word first entered the language, I would have gone there, but there is a paywall. Collins did help with a diagram. It showed brief use for the first time in 1778 - 0.07% - and then the word languished or fell off completely until 1978 when it took off at 0.33% use. But that’s not a very big number either.

I moved on to the American Merriam-Webster.  It had this to say: Definition of interiority
1: interior quality or character
2: inner life or substance : psychological existence

When we are little kids, using big words gives us a sense of authority and superiority - and it also makes us part of an in-group.  For me, one of the challenges of Berry’s New Story - is telling it in words that other people understand.  "Story" is a simpler word.  For more fun, I went back to Collins and tried translating story into French, German and Italian.  In each case it brings up a native word in the language histoire,  Geschichte, storia. When I tried the same thing with Interiority, this is what came up - intériorité, Innerlichkeit, Interiorità.  The German seemed to have a better word of their own. The others sounded as though they adopted the English one.

When we watched Robin Wall Kimmerer this week, several in the course commented on her warmth and simplicity as it comes through in the sound of her voice and her demeanor. It's isn't as though she can't use big words when she chooses to.  I've just finished two of her books, Gathering Moss and Braiding Sweetgrass. Her naming of mosses reveals a scholar who can joust with any biologist and win hands down.  For me, interiority has a cold and rather scientific sound - like an empty and sparsely furnished room.  But this playful research brought a phrase  that I can work with - "inner life" -  because it sounds as though it comes from the wisdom of the heart.  It still combines an adjective and a noun.  To spur myself and others to  act, I have to turn a phrase into a verb. The video for this section of the course on the global brain with the outline of the human body is also a big help in showing us what it means to live - both inside and outside our skins.

A good teacher once heard a student say, "I feel very creative".  The teacher asked "So what are you going to create?"  "Oh I didn't mean that I was going to do anything about it.  It's just how I feel today".

That's why I never use the word "creativity" either.  But "create" is a verb I like.

Inspiration

Here are poems for a rainy day:

WHEN I AM AMONG THE TREES
by Mary Oliver

When I am among the trees,
especially the willows and the honey locust,
equally the beech, the oaks and the pines,
they give off such hints of gladness.
I would almost say that they save me, and daily.
I am so distant from the hope of myself,
in which I have goodness, and discernment,
and never hurry through the world
but walk slowly, and bow often.
Around me the trees stir in their leaves
and call out, “Stay awhile.”
The light flows from their branches.
And they call again, “It’s simple,” they say,
“and you too have come
into the world to do this, to go easy, to be filled
with light, and to shine.”

KINSHIP
by Ursula K. Le Guin

Very slowly burning, the big forest tree
stands in the slight hollow of the snow
melted around it by the mild, long
heat of its being and its will to be
root, trunk, branch, leaf, and know
earth dark, sun light, wind touch, bird song.

Rootless and restless and warmblooded, we
blaze in the flare that blinds us to that slow,
tall, fraternal fire of life as strong
now as in the seedling two centuries ago.