It was inevitable

I suppose you could say I have out grown Blogger. Believe me, I didn't think the day would come. But it has and I must bid farewell as I move my online presence to Wordpress that somehow feels more grown up (I am almost 30 you know). My new Interweb identity is now sheltered at http://www.beckyfarrar.com/. See you there!

Unplugged and Connected

It has been a year since that fateful moment when I walked into Comcast and exchanged my Interweb modem for more time offline. To this day it ranks as one of my best decisions EVER, and I do make a lot of great decisions if I do say so myself.  The Internet had come to represent an easy way for me to connect with people, and mostly a large time waster.

Some might say I’ve cheated now that I own an iPhone since I can access the Internet via my handheld device. Maybe I am, I feel just enough connected knowing I can access my email if I need to find something…for the most part it distracts me with Words With Friends on the bus. I’m also more aware of how connected I am without the Internet. I have a beautiful, brilliant community in Man Franpsycho and my connection with them supercedes any fast DSL.

What have I done with all the time I haven’t spent scouring Facebook or watching new youTube videos? Well, I have created a haven, and nothing short of a heaven in my studio. Without TV or Internet I have to face myself constantly. In those quiet moments getting ready for bed there really aren’t any distractions except my own moods or desires. I can hear myself think in my apartment. I read more, write more, and listen to music and really listen to it. My connection to myself has deepened within the silence of my space called home. I can be more present, feeling my body, noticing my  breath. I feel I have embodied connection instead of projecting that desire onto my  computer to uphold.

Yes, the Internet is useful and amazing, I’m not saying it isn’t valueable in many regards. When it comes to  finding ways to distract us or giving us poor posture slouching over the keyboard…it wins hands down. I realize pulling the plug isn’t for everyone, however, I do suggest everyone consider a little less time unplugged and connected.

"In to me you see" with a healthy dose of vulnerability

Yes, this topic is a cheesy, one…more warm and fuzzy than philosophical. But it gets at the nature of our desires. We crave intimacy with all of our being. In fact, I would argue love is all we really want and intimacy is how we get it.  As Osho says, “Love is the goal, life is the journey.”

Intimacy  by nature requires vulnerability. It has come to my attention recently that I’m not very vulnerable about what my inner experience really is, I’m fine sharing my day, sometimes a mood, but my inner experience of who I am stays completely hidden for the most part. And actually, that’s the part people most want to see. We relate on common ground and shared experience, what happens on the inside is so similar.  I always thought I was intimate with people and am realizing now, the vulnerability piece has been missing. I think that’s actually why I started this blog, to show and share my vulnerability with others, and create intimacy and shared experience with people I don’t even know. (or people I do know like my mom who is the main subscriber) ;) After realizing this about myself I picked up Osho’s “Intimacy: Trusting Oneself and the Other.” Because honestly Osho just gets it, all of it, all the time it seems.

Intimacy as exposing our deepest feelings and vulnerabilities. Where I seem to veer off the intimacy and vulnerability track is when staying grounded in my own inner strength so even if the other person remains closed, no damage has been done to me. I want to allow someone else in through my vulnerability. In the cheesy “in to me you see” way, we allow and invite someone into our inner self. People wonder deep down if their romantic and other relationships are strong enough to bear truth of what really goes on inside our heads…afraid to test the full waters of intimacy. Prefering instead to stay in the shallow waters of superficiality. If a relationship survives truth then it is beautiful, if not at least a falsity was discovered so that both parties can move on. Lately I'm aware of how intimate my friends and I are. I have reached a point where I am allowing my vulnerability to shine through and in the process have allowed people to see into me.As Osho says, once again he nails it, “ That’s the meaning of love, that at least in one person’s presence we can be totally nude.” (literally and figuratively) I also don’t want this to sound limiting and associate intimacy "soul"y with lovers. Many lovers aren’t actually intimate. In Western culture we seem to focus intimacy on our “intimate relationships.” And it confuses me because aren’t all relationships intimate? We rely on one person, unrealistically for so much when we actually have enough intimacy to go around. And yet, I also believe many lovers aren’t actually intimate. Intimacy is separate from being sexually connected to someone. We are stingy, I refer to myself here, with our vulnerability and intimacy. I want people to see the inner me, knowing a part of myself will always be hidden. I have plenty to spare. When I’m hurting I want to allow someone to see that and know if they do see and run, it's their own fear of vulnerability rearing its ugly head.

 The exposure of our innermostness can be scary and we have to trust in this sharing. I don’t want to become someone who wears her heart on her sleeve, I do want to be someone who allows vulnerability to be present. Lonliness melts away when intimacy is shared, because then we can finally feel the love that is waiting on the other side of vulnerability.

Today I'm grateful for Thai iced tea, afternoon snacks, and class.

 

Eat, Pray, Write!

My friend Jesse shared this TED video and I was really struck by its interesting inquiry into (that is a lot of "in" words!) the nature of creativity. In the time of the Greeks creativity was something one was possessed by and "had" as in came from something outside of ourselves. Nowadays we talk about people  "being" a genius, as if they are the "soul" cause of it. She also notes a new way of thinking about the idea of "struggling artist."  Enjoy!

Improv and Physics: Where Uncertainty Collides

I, like many people, have a deep seeded fear of the unknown. And being the sometimes overly self-reflective soul that I am, I felt the need to explore this scariness a bit further. Many theories exist about this natural fear of the unknown alive and well in many of us (wish I knew the proper cool Latin –phobia word to enter here). I find the psychologist theories the most useful here as they attribute the common discomfort to how our happiness as babies was determined by the predictability of our needs being met. As adults we equate the same predictability and security with happiness. Although I certainly (that is a certainty) get bored with predictability. Turns out what’s missing for me, and in a lot of cases, is actually the ability to cope with the inherent uncertainty of life - not make things more certain. Both improv comedy and quantum physics share the necessity of uncertainty, as well as many other gems of wisdom, and offer deep insights into the implications of learning to love the unpredictable nature of life.

I took my first improv class (insert Endgames shout out here), about six months ago, it was on my Life List (#40 to be exact) and per usual wanted to do something that made me slightly uncomfortable. My desire also stemed from the fact I have so few outlets to express myself in a playful way. Improv seemed the perfect antidote to the sometimes seriousness of school and life in general. It is six months since my first class and I’m finally appreciating all the important lessons it had to teach me.
Another great teacher on uncertainty is to be found in the Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle (a fitting title) of quantum physics. It counteracts the usual Newtonian way of thinking where physical existence is predictable and certain and shows the impossibility of measuring the position and momentum of a particle simultaneously to get accurate or certain results. Simply stated, the more we know about position the less we can know about the momentum. The act of measuring one variable changes the other. This uncertainty of measurements feeds into the future development of the system and influences all other possible outcomes. This paradoxical way of assessment encourages the idea that anything could be possible in a system with unpredictable results.

Quantum theories point to the idea that knowledge is limited and therefore cannot provide security. Even scientists recognize the beauty of creativity and its position in the unknown. Fritjof Capra, physicist and systems theorist, said, “Uncertainty is at the heart of creativity.” Improv comedy is an art form and creative process defined by spontaneity and the unknown. The principles of what makes good improv describe Heisenberg’s Uncertainty Principle. Because of its naturally self-organizing system, improv allows absolute freedom and possibility. An inclination towards order, coherence, and meaning could be likened to Newtonian physics, or a scripted play. However, anything is possible in improv and that fact makes it fascinating to watch and even more frightening to participate in.
Improv, like quantum mechanics, also relies heavily upon relationships to one another and the “entanglement” of ourselves with the other actors. Major parts of quantum physics show us how things are related (see EPR Paradox and Bell's Theorum for more on this...Wikipedia can say it better than I can in a blog post). These relations are governed by probabilities, not by predictabilities, just like improv. What makes a scene great is that the characters have a relationship we can relate to and connect with. We don't want to do predictive improv, even though some of us may want predictive science. We want to do clever, connected improv showing us the hilarity to be found in our own lives. As comedian/improviser Del Close says, “The truth is funny.”

The challenge for those of us living in uncertainty, which is all of us, is becoming comfortable in the unmanifest, or the superposition (the place where an atom is both in and out of existence) without needing to collapse the wave function. In improv terms, to live in the space of a scene where we have no idea what will happen and stay there confidently. The longer we can hold, or are comfortable in this state then the scene/life can truly unfold before us without our attachments tainting it. We as improvisers seek to balance spontaneity with scientific method, neither one giving us all the answers or showing us how to cope with the uncertainty they both thrive upon. This time in the uncertainty requires certain characteristics of mastery, one of them being trust.

Above all improv taught me the necessity of trusting in the face of uncertainty, because whatever needed to happen, would happen. I remember being at open “workouts” with a group of mostly strangers, and men to make matters worse (I much prefer the company of woman, for reasons I won’t name here), and feeling incredibly insecure. It was awful, I knew I needed to be there, but I wasn’t sure how to deal with the pit in my stomach that showed up each and every time I had to enter a scene. I didn’t trust myself enough to just jump in. At the time I didn’t realize creativity requires self-trust, and also inspires it.

We have to participate in our lives believing and trusting there is some sort of higher purpose to the uncertainty we exist in. In improv we have no choice but to love our mistakes and trust ourselves, the other players, and the overall process. Our ability to cope with not knowing what will happen next leaves us no other option. Trust, we must. For to trust ourselves and the universe in its process requires us to be the natural improvisers, scientists, and philosophers we are.

Certainty of Death

So much change has been happening and I am experiencing deaths of all kinds, not the "petite mou" kind as in orgasm (as in French), or the physical deaths. I am instead mourning the death of so many things in my life that have to go for me to fully step into my next phase of life. I'm doing my best to ride the seas of uncertainty. I find myself wanting to cling to something percieved to be static...a person, a place, a thing. I'm aware all of it's an illusion, but I don't know how else to cope.  I'm scared, and scared of what? Of being out of control, of actually  have to face who I have to be and the voice of love calling me forward into the woman I will be.  What's so scary about the future filled with uncertainty? It's as if I'm leaving college all over again or choosing a major. How do I find trust in the uncertain? There is a certainty I believe...that all of the rocking of my ship is for the better.

All the parts of me that are dying, must die for me to become the woman I know I am. I don't know her, so I don't know how to reach her or talk to her, or act like her. She's in there somewhere intelligent, powerful, and beautiful. I feel her reaching for me and I'm afraid to grasp, for when I do the little girl in me has to die. And with her all the ways I've been in my past that don't serve me. Yes, all the comfortable ways of being that involve my fear of abandonment I didn't know I had, an inability to recieve love, and all the yucky things about myself I am finally seeing.

It has become ap"parent" to me that my parents and I have a relationship that is rapidly changing. I can't be the little girl I have been for the past 29 years. Instead I can only be myself and have to stay grounded in what that means to me. When people disagree with you or don't approve of your choices, or are struggling with their own. It makes it so difficult for me to feel their love. I'm realizing what's important to me is to ask for love when I don't feel it. Being a little girl means depending up on them in an unconscious way, it means not having a space for something outside of what they want for me. I don't want to disappoint them and I also have to stand up and strong in who I am, even if that means disappointing them.

I'm swimming in the seas of uncertainty and what has to die is my desire to control what's happening and what's next. I must trust this change is for the best. So much of my personality that is ambitious and action-oriented has to surrender to the larger uncertainty that is life. I need to be willing to take risks in the name of my desires.

I'm also mourning my future. Someone I cared for for so long and I spent years of my life living in the hope of us being together again. He's not coming back, we aren't going to be together again and I have to mourn all that will never be. It's as if we're breaking up all over again. A piece of me knew this was what would be, but my hope wouldn't let me let him go. Instead I listened to songs about people leaving and coming back for the happily ever after. There will be no ever after and even in uncertainy there's a level of prevailing doubt. I spent years not investing in anyone else because in the back of my mind he and I had it made. No one would compare...and now someone has to, because it won't be him. I'm sad for all I wanted that will never be, with him.

And that's the way it should be. Life would be infinitely less fun if we knew. Indeed the two certain things of life...death and change."When have you ever been made less by dying."-Rumi. In fact this time around, I've been made more by dying.

Today I'm grateful for new neighbors, Devotchka, and my toes in the grass.

Put a Bird on It

I have to brag because my bedroom is so adorable it made it onto the Interweb, along with my "Let's Make Out" pillow. Here's the link and the title as an obvious ode to Portlandia episode:

http://www.dezignwithaz.com/flying-birds-wall-decals-becky-a-502.html