Challenges or Self Smoke Screens

I was talking with a friend of mine about different topics, and at one point we touched over their fancy for all sorts of challenges that have to do mainly with life style, health and habits. This friend is a very goal-oriented person, and these challenges help them set goals that seek to improve their live. But do they?

Sometimes I tend to unleash my inner Sigmund Freud, and as I heard them speak about "not failling" and "fulfilling the challenge", and "proving to themselves that they can do it", some bells started chiming in my head. The thought in my head was "Would you like to talk to me about what are you hiding from?". Not an easy or a proper question to ask, but I felt something was off. Now, of course challenges are not a bad thing, and exercises to pick up healthy habits are good, like learning to eat three times a day in set hours, include veggies, lay off the six gallons of coffee per day, quite smoking... you know, healthy stuff. But then, there are things that might be fun, or might seem like a healthy habit, but don't really do much for you.

Here's what I mean: there are challenges or "habits" to pick that might make you stress and strain for the duration of it, that might end up in a success or a failure, and when you win them you quickly forget them, but when you fail them, they haunt you.

In the case of my friend, I particularly noticed their choice of words: they talked about "failing the challenge", not about "skipping a day" or "missing" something. They tend to be an A-type personality, so failure is like hell for them, and it can consume them. So why choose to do challenges? I've got to the conclusion that maybe, they might be so afraid of failing on something important to them, that these challenges give them back a sense of control. Challenges give them something where they can fail but they feel completely empowered and capable of conquering. This begs the question then, what is this uncontrollable situation they feel they are failing at, which they can't control?

I did not pursue this inquiry with them (for obvious reasons), but I thought of some things that could bother other people, and which are false responsabilities.

A False Responsability

I call false responsability all those things we take upon ourselves or are laid on us that do not depend on us. For this I use concepts used in Internal Control - which is used in entities all around the world to set up responsabilities within the structure and ensure everybody is doing what they are supposed to be doing and avoid mishandling and curtail corruption - Responsability never comes alone: Responsability comes with Authority. Also, delegating the dealing of a situation does not delegate the Responsability. You can't ditch a responsability by landing it down to someone else: you are still responsable.

It happens in life that we are often encumbered with tasks or responsabilities over which we have no power at all, or only "power in appearance". Examples of this are the cases where we get involved in the decisions of someone else, and we feel responsible for someone else's decision making even though we have no power to make decisions for them.

We might feel responsible for "making a relationship work" when our partner has no intention to do so, and so we feel guilty when it falls apart, when it was not all on us. We might feel responsible for helping a friend or relative that ends up abusing of our kind heart, and when we try to stop, they turn against us and call us out on cutting the help.

Society also piles up on us loads of false responsabilities through expectations, such as getting married and forming a family, or getting a university degree, getting a particular job, and so on. Maybe we don't want any of this, but we feel pressured, so if we give in, we feel bad because we betray ourselves, but if we refuse, we feel guilty for not "completing our duty".

In these cases, notice that you are being made responsible of something you can't control or something you didn't choose. Choice is being stripped from you. It might sound stupid, but the pounding on your spirit of these "responsabilities" can break you. And they are not even real responsabilities!

Your responsabilities come from the things You Choose.

Yes, it is so much easier to ignore the fact that you are being pressured into something you don't want, made feel guilty about it, made feel like a failure because you are not "loving it", or not even fulfilling it, and so challenges help look away and distract your for the pain that has no actual place in your life.

What to do?

Well, first, face these monsters. Decide about them. Maybe you are hiding from something you can fix and you would really like. With those you can make a plan. Think long term, give yourself ample space, space it, make Alternative Plans or Plan Bs. There are always ways to tackle anything, and if time is not of essence (be real, there are things that can wait), take as much time as you want in the preparation and R&D stages.

If the things that bother you are false responsabilities, flip them. It might hurt at first, but draw that line, say "Sorry, we are closed for business", "Yeah, I think I'll pass", "No, sorry, I can't deal with that". And never be afraid, if anyone ever calls you cruel or mean for not catering to their demands, and tell you you are a bad person and there is a special place in you for Hell, to reply: "Yes, I know. It's called The Throne".

Dare to be strong. I'm already proud of you.

Advise for Journaling

Property of Stormberry

You might be roaming the ailes of a paper store looking for a notebook and a pen to start journaling because you feel like this is something you want to do, or because you are convinced that this is going to make your life better. You might be nervous or excited, or just blah. So, let me ask you something: What will you do the moment you open the journal? How would you start?

Yes, you may already have a plan, or you might be concentrating on the notebook purchase because you have no idea what to do about it.

The thing with journaling, or keeping a diary - call it any way you want to, it's yours and it should fit and please you, nobody else - is that often expectations can kill the process. The "blank page" can block you and make you feel off because you have no idea what to do, or maybe you devote the first week an insane amount of energy in planning, designing, drawing, collaging and what not, and then you realize you don't really want to do that anymore because it is so tiresome. So, what to do?

I started journaling when I was 10 years old. From age 8 or so, I wanted desperately a Hello Kitty diary, even though I didn't know to write quite well. In my case, ever since I know myself, I have always been drawn to letters and to writing (among other things, of course), so when I've got my first diary for Christmas, I was over the moon, even if it was in a blank paged book, and I was afraid to write in it because I was used to ruled pages. I thought back then that keeping a diary meant to write everyday, so even when I was tired or nothing interesting had happened, I wrote in my journal. Of course, on those days I wrote:

Nothing interesting happened today.

Eventually this became too much of a chore and I abandoned it. Me, quite possibly a graphomaniac. Since I am addicted to writing, though, I came back to it later on, with a much more relaxed attitude, and started writing whenever I wanted, whatever I wanted, no pressure. And I've been doing it since then.

Property of Snowberry

There have been years when I've made only one entry in the whole year, and there are years where I burn through two or three books because I'm carrying my diary around and writing like I'm possessed. Some of my journal books are cover to cover only writing, some have drawings, some have... charts and graphs where I explore ideas for economics theories. Some others are fat and prone to fall apart because I've stuffed it with mementoes from trips and dates and purchases and whatnots. They each are me and represent me, and they are there to wait for me for when I want to write about something. And they work for me.

So, what's my advise for people looking for starting a journal (or a diary)? Simple, pay attention.

First Page Issue

In my case this is no longer an issue. After so many journals, each is like the continuation of the next, so I'm long since gotten over this issue. However, sometimes I like to leave this page purposefully in blank, and later on do something on it. You can, for instance (and I really like this), grab a cup of your favorite hot drink (non sweetened) and pour just a tad on a saucer. Sit the mug on the spilt liquid and then put it on the page and let it sit a couple of minutes. Lift it and you have a purposeful stain, in a circle. You can leave it like that, or write a quote in it, or around it, draw if you want to...

You can also do that with water colors and go creative.

Another idea is to pick up a magazine or a newspaper you like, clip out a picture or a news article, and paste it. The write over it "Most Memorable News/Picture on The Day This Journal/Diary was Started". If the picture is big, or you make a collage, you can always cut a strip of paper to write on it and glue it on. Perfectly cut, ripped... it all works. :-) Remember you can "age" paper by brewing a really strong black tea, and submerging the paper in it. Leave it some 20 to 30 minutes and then dry the page by putting it between old news papers and pressing it down. It can take a day or two, depending on weather conditions.

You can also go not so artsy, and just write a quote or a warning on it, or the date of start or a list of the things you like. And here's another idea: Put on top of it or at the center, or anywhere you want "Random Thoughts" or "Brain Dump", or "Thought Parking", and use it through time to write anything short on it.

You don't need to make it perfect, because honestly, you will hardly see it. Make it anything that talks to you. And yes, it's alright to use it for the first entry. The hell knows you may want to use up as much of the paper real estate of your journal for as long as you can.

First Entry

This can be tricky for many. Remember this is for YOU, so you don't need to introduce yourself to the journal, though you can do that if you want to. In this spirit, remember that this first entry should be... you. Like every other. Writing the date is optional, too. Nobody needs to know. You can add a title, if you like too, or address the journal as if you were writing a letter.

Two of the diaries I've read and remained with me are Anna Frank's and Anaïs Nin's. Ms. Nin wrote continually, so often you don't have an idea of when things happened. Her diaries were a collection of confidences, unaddressed, and mixing thoughts, impressions and facts. Anna started each entry with "Dear Kitty", a friend she invented, and made her journal to be.

Here's an example of how I do it:

Heredia,

2019.09.23

"Giving Advise"

Another day at work, and another day gone by. Things are going as usual and I'm happy about it. I was also thinking about journaling because I've seen K's efforts to try and get into journaling.

Style

The question of style is the easiest: go with whatever pleases you. This is not a beauty contest, nor  there is a price for the journal that keeps the canon. If you feel like doing some are, do some art. If you feel just like writing, then write. The journal is there for you to unload your mind and spirit, so do so and don't mind how it's going to look.

Style can change from book to book, and you can also experiment with different things as you go by. Your journal is personal, so it has an ample space to do all your tries and errors. And don't worry! Try it all, keep it there, and maybe in the future, when you revisit your pages, you can rediscover something from the old days.

Property of Stormberry

Sometimes art or clipping look aweful at the moment, but with time, the materials age and it can look wonderful years later.

The Rhythm

Take it easy. Notebooks and writing instruments have a cost. Don't write if you don't feel like it. If you do something when you don't like it, when you have to force yourself to do it, you'll hate it. This is not a life saving diet, nor exercise to keep you in shape. This is something you do for you. To the hell with all that "you have to make it a habit", or "get into the habit" and "fake it until you make it". Hell no! Do it because it pleases you, because you really want to, because you feel like it.

You can keep it by your bed, or at your desk, or carry it around with you... it's all up to you and what you feel like it.

No matter if you  do it for a mental health exercise or a way to improve your life so, this is your friend, your personal tool, your writing, your journal and it should fit you and serve you, not the other way around. Journaling is a pleasure, not a task.

EDIT: I was checking some videos about journaling, and I found this video from this super lovely girl, and she gives some really incredible tips. So, I'll leave her video here to help you get inspired. :-D Oh, and please, please, PLEASE live her a lot of love in her video, because she just so totally deserve it. :-) 2019.09.24

Freedom

The second week will start tomorrow, the second week of freedom after I decided to step down from the German lessons I was taking at the Goethe Zentrum. I can't even begin to tell you how happy and relieved I am! I have more time to concentrate on the book we are reading at the Lesenklub, and the language becomes again something enjoyable.

It may have taken me a long time, but I think I stopped in time, before the circumstances and external conditions ruined my relationship with the language. I get out of it in time.

So, here is my lesson to all of you: learn to give up, to let go, to recognize when something is no longer working, and brave up to part ways. It's not easy because a false sense of pride can get in the way, or maybe it's a bit of OCD. We might already be used to it. But be it what it may, remember that keeping up with something that no longer makes you happy is the surest way to get to hate it. So, is it worth to take things to the point when you hate everything when you could step away, walk away and keep sweet, beautiful memories, mazbe even with the chance to come back again to it later, in better terms?

Thoughts About Bullet Journaling

Source: property of Stormberry

I'm slowly reaching the point where I've been bullet journaling for some two or three years in a row, and the time has come to evaluate how to I feel with this system. Like everything, it has had its ups and its downs, and I've been adapting to its many twists and turns. It has been funny and I've liked some of it's features. So let's see how the system fares for me:

Pros

1. I get lots and lots of space for notes and random jots.

2. It's fairly adaptable, so I don't have to commit to a single format of spread or tracker for the rest of the year.

3. I can use a notebook or a filofax planner. It works either way.

Cons

1. I have to write down every single day the date and the appointments. It doesn't really let me plan some tasks - tasks, not appointments - in a way that when I get to THAT day I don't have to write it down.

2. I have to prepare every single spread each time I need it. Every month I have to make a monthly and a tracker.

3. It all ended up just as bulky as the filofax was, so there is no improvement there.

4. I've found it hard to create sections, which I've got used to with the filofax, and which I love, but then it kind of takes away from the idea of the bullet journal.

Then there are these things that I have noticed about myself:

1. I don't really use the index. I have used it, but it's very seldom.

2. Though I know I can fix a lot of things that bother me with post its, I don't use nearly that many post its. I have found it bothers me when post its pile on top of post its for tasks or appointments. It also bothers me when a post it has been moved around a lot and they curl up, get dirty or  stop being sticky enough.

In general, I would really, really like to be a one-notebook kind of person, specially if I manage to get into the Masters program I'm aiming for next year. I often carry books and notebooks with me, and a leaner planner would be a real life saver - specially since I don't really like having my stuff on my phone or my laptop. However, I'm sort of a paper hoarder, and I like to keep printed out lists and programs in my calendar for reference.

The filofax gave me a place to park all of that, and it did grew thick in no time. I know some of my friends liked to look at it and page through it because it gets so juicy, so nice and fat, but I didn't like it all that much because that added bulk and weight to my already big, heavy bag. I would have thought the notebook my friend Arjen gave me would be the answer to my prayers, but I ended up having made a cover to be able to carry it all in one piece. The notebook is currently as fat as my filofax was last year.

So, with enough time to plan ahead, I'm thinking about going back to my filofax (notebooks will be reserved to be used as personal journals, as it should), and start working on a crossover between both systems. I'm thinking about designing and printing out a series of monthly calendar spreads and yearly trackers. With the monthly calendars already printed out, there would be no need for a future log, as I could keep the monthlies on the back and intersperse the pages for the daily activity as it is needed.

My plans currently don't fix all the cons I've noticed with the bullet journal, but I think I'll get there in time. Maybe I'll end up back in the folds of the filofax, and using my trusty Chronodex again. 

We shall see how things progress in time, and you can be sure I'll be keeping you posted.

My First Kaweco

Source: property of Stormberry

On Sunday, while my folks were washing my dad's car, they found a fountain pen I thought I've lost - or worse yet, someone had snitched. This was my first ever Kaweco fountain pen.

To be perfectly honest, when I bought it in... was it july? Earlier? I bought it on a whim because my best friend Prue told me about this Kaweco Shop in our country and I HAD TO have one. You know the feeling, right? Right? ... No? Oh... me neither.

Anyway, when I entered the store I knew what I wanted - in broad lines: I wanted the classic Kaweco style pen. Originally I had my eyes set on something like the demonstrator (though I don't really like it, because the material is cloudy, not crystal clear) or a brass one. Up close the demonstrator definitively wasn't what I wanted, and the brass one was too expensive for what I would pay for a pen... like that. Now, don't get me wrong, the pen isn't all that expensive, when you consider the normal range of prices for fountain pens available for the middle range collector, BUT I measure the price of pens based on what can I pay, and how much am I willing to pay depending on the aesthetics and feel of the pen.

Checking the whole selection available, I decided in the end to get a black Kaweco Sport. The one thing I didn't like was the golden nib and the golden inscription, since I like silver much better than gold. When I tried this pen, I also found issues with the glide of the nid, which for me was too toothy.

Given the experience I had with it, I was displeased but I took it like a pen-test. I tried it and I didn't like it. Then it got lost within the week I bought it. :-(

I was sad but also not so sad, because I didn't really liked the pen... but I kinda missed it. This is how the next weekend I went back and bought my second Kaweco Sport in a skin-like color, with silver nib and silver inscription. And with this one I was very pleased! From time to time I missed my scratchy black, but then I bought also by beloved ... I have no idea what it's called... Student, I believe. Anyway, I have a new, yellow Kaweco fountain pen that doesn't have the shape of the Sport. It came in a tin box, which I love, and has many chrome details, which I don't like, BUT the pen is fabulous to write with, so I forgive the chrome.

My life was all nice and happy, and then my mom comes into the house and asks me:

"Is this yours?" holding up a scratched black stick.

My eyes just bulged out, because Sweet Gods! It was my first Kaweco Sport! I was so, so, so happy! I quickly took the pen, checked it, and noted that I love it all the more now that it's all scratched and scarred. I washed it out and filled it up with ink from a bottle my adorable friend Arjen sent my way - Sailor 731. I tried it in my journal... and it's still scratchy like a scared, wet cat. But it's back to me!

Isn't life something so interesting?

That Thing About IT

So, I'm in a sort of bookclub organized by a local booktube celebrity... Ok, let me explain this properly. There is this absolutely, drop dead gorgeous girl who loves to read, and has a booktube channel called GoWithKar (it's only in Spanish). She's very charismatic and talented, and her channel rose quite fast.

Source: Twitter, @gowithkar

Dedicated as she is to her content, she decided to create a Patreon account to support her channel, and there, among the different tiers, one includes a book club with monthly meetings. It took me a while to decide to support her, because I didn't quite saw the benefits of the service she basically provides through this platform until another friend of mine told me about it. Then I signed and and so I've got into the bookclub. Truthfully, I'm rather pleased.

When I've got in, they were already reading "It", by Stephen King. Kar, the girl, is a huge King-fan, so the reading of that book was expected. I'm really convinced by his production, so I was more than happy to be spared from the reading. Not like I wouldn't say no if asked, but you know, it was better this way.

The rest of the members of this tier had read the book and liked it very much, so they had decided to do a marathon of "It" movies, staring with the first one, watched at home of one of them, and then doing a group movie trip to go watch "It: Chapter 2". Somehow I was roped into it. No, don't ask me, I was roped in, and so I went.

Though the book and the writer don't really catch my attention, I also wanted to try out the story, see if it had the bones to maybe seduce me enough for me to give the 1500+ page story a try.

Long story short, it didn't.

After giving the movies a time to settle in my head - I was irrationally annoyed by the tendency of the characters of leaving their bikes thrown haphazard on the road - I came to realize that I don't hate the story. The story in itself isn't bad, I just doesn't do anything for me. It doesn't click with me, but I can see that it isn't bad. Now, "not bad" in this case doesn't automatically means that it's good. It simply means that it isn't a waste of time and paper and celluloide.

As I kept thinking and thinking about it, what I realized is that I actually don't like the stories where the plot doesn't solve itself within the original world it creates, or the expectation it creates. An example, for instance, is "The Murders in Rue Morgue" by Edgar Allan Poe. [SPOILER ALERT!!] In this story, a series of gruesome murders are commited by an animal, though for the duration of the story you are made believe it's the work of a serial killer. [SPOILER ALERT END] Though it is a story and a way to twist the reader out of the expected outcome I dislike this sort of plot solutions, because it seems to me like the writer was unable to fit the solution into the frame of the world they had created.

Part of the excitement of a suspense novel is precisely being able to guess what is happening and who is behind it, and once you find out, your mind goes back to the story to backtrack the clues. However, when the resolution of the story opens a new line and wrecks the hypothesis you've been creating, gives you  - or at least gives me - a sort of disappointment because the expectation of an explanation that could have been hidden in the prior lines evaporates.

This might be just a pet peeve of mine - and probably is - but then again, this sort of story also poses a social issue.

Though novels are novels and fiction is just fiction, truth is that everything people read permeates their minds and often find a way to their system of values and believes. This doesn't mean that people who read crime novels become criminals, but books do help normalize certain ideas. Romance novels can help normalize and promote the idea that women's greatest goal is to get married and have kids. Some of these can also normalize the idea that codependent, abusive, toxic relationships are the desirable type of relationship people should seek. Just think about how often people idealize and use fictional relationships as ideals for their own.

Pulling from this, suspense novels that end up giving the villain a background or origin outside the world of the heroes (comes from another world, another time, another dimension, another species...), starts putting in people's head the idea of the bad coming from "outside" the group. This idea could be pulled philosophically to safe harbors, but it also plans the seed for division of "us vs them" scenarios, where the us group is blameless, while the them group carries the whole weight of evil.

In It, though there are bullies, the movies at least do leave you with the sense, that this bully is under the control or is being influenced by the outsider, so the root of evil goes back to the "other", and away from the "us". There are no glimpse of other others that might be good, that might help, but all we see from this other is evil and desire to destroy the us.

What does this say to the world? What sort of message drops on a world so deeply divided, scarred by the nationalism and ravenous desire to blame others for the consequences of our own mindlessness and selfishness?

The book was written in another time, when maybe these ideas were harmless, but the idea still remain.

I guess a lot of people read this book and enjoy the miriad of stories crammed into a small town story. I am discouraged for the kick outside of the original frame.

A Few Updates

I'm again running behind with my proposed schedule. Why on Hell did I ever made this a New Year's Resolution? Truth is one should only post when one wants to and when one has something to post about.

Ok, it's not like I don't have a lot of things to talk about - I can yap all day long, and those who know me personally can attest to that. However, these past weeks have been sort of a drag on me. They have been grinding down my nerves and I just want to... I just want general vacations from everything. I think I want to be retired, without a care in the world. See? Nobody talks about the burdens of being "still young", "still in working age", or more to the point "too young for retirement".

So what has been bearing down on me?

House of Seven Gables

My house is finally being built, which is so awesome and so, so wonderful, BUT. So, there have been some issues with the finances, and not precisely mine. There was a part that my folks were supposed to help me with, which they can't afford now, so I'll have to go great lenghts to get the money from another source (namely, an unplanned loan, that will hack into my plans for the future, regarding buying inane amounts of books - ok, maybe those won't be affected - and traveling).

This has really gotten to my nerves, and so on my parents' nerves. The issue is complicated and can be tracked to a particular couple of someones - who shall remain unnamed - who have been going all happy-go-lucky spending freely the money they didn't have and making changes on the go that cost quite hefty sums. The result? Now my folks and my brother have to start looking for ways to reduce costs in what's still missing (all de details), and I have to see how can I foot the bill for my house.

There are ups in this, like several savings that can be made on my house thanks to some special discounts my dad can get (since he has been buying building material on bulk), and I can also use up a lot of material that was purchased for the other houses but never got used.

The Gods willing, all is going to be ok.

Meanwhile, it does make me so happy to see my little house raise up from the ground, from its foundations and become the house of my dreams, my very own House of Seven Gables.

Marketing Thesis

This topic shouldn't be pressing anymore on me, since I'm really about to finish it. All chapters have been written, the tutor finds everything "perfect", with some details here and there to fix, and I happen to know that I am the only student actually presenting each chapter for revision and grading on time.

Eight of us started the process, only two of us are still in the run (with this tutor), and I'm the only one that seems to have a hope of graduating. So, what's the problem here? That I realized I don't like marketing. It's not my thing and I don't enjoy it at all. Of course, it's a plus for me to know about this, and be able to gauge the proposals marketing experts present me, understand when they go all "technical" on me, but this is not what I want to do by far. Not like I would, I mean, I am an economist, but I have to think like I want to do this for the benefit of the thesis I'm writing and it just fills me with ennui.

When I'm done with this, I think I'll only keep on studying further in Economics. I don't want to strand away from my true path.

German Classes

Ok, this was a headache, but now it's more like a release. My issue with the German lessons was that I wasn't enjoying them anymore, attending them felt like a drag and for a while I've been feeling like I'm not learning a thing. It wasn't because my teachers weren't good enough, because they are amazing, or that the textbooks were boring - they are ok - or because my classmates were obnoxious - they are ok. My problem was that I hate the place where I had to go. It's far, ugly and boring. I had to struggle through around an hour of traffic to get there - oftentimes more - only to arrive to a desolated place, with an awful parking space (ok, at least there was parking space), far from any coffeeshop to make it more pleasant.

Then, when classes were over, I had to drive home for over 45 minutes, to get home past 22 hr, to wake up the next day at 3:45 hr. Not fun. So, as result I was no longer paying attention to class and studied only for the tests. In the end, I was passing the classes but nothing remained in my head.

I like to finish everything I start - therefore I am struggling with stupid Marketing - but this was more that I was willing to keep on doing.

So, after much thinking and mulling about it, I decided not to enroll into the next class. It took me some time, but I finally decided that my need to finish stuff shouldn't go against my better judgement. Why keep paying to get nothing from it? And why should I keep learning more through classes? I don't need a German Language diploma? I need to practice. So I shut the door on that one, and decided to keep up only the German Reading Club, which I enjoy, it's located in my favorite building, at agreeable hours, much more relaxed, and I get to practice with stuff I do like: books.

I still get some discomfort from leaving the class, but at the same time I feel so... liberated. :-) I just need to get fully into this new reality.