Solution Oriented

So it seems I've learned a new thing about myself today. I'm Solution Oriented. 

"...concentrating on the solution is a much more positive activity than concentrating on the problem. Turning one's attention to potential answers is more fun and gratifying than getting sucked into the downward spiral of pity that nearly always goes with concentrating on the problem. Even if a solution isn't readily apparent, just the act of searching for one is an activity that will always get your mind away from the problem itself."

It all started with the used computer I bought recently that arrived yesterday. I mentioned in an earlier post that i bought a used computer but that one died after one day so I had to send it back. While waiting for my refund and feeling really blue about the whole fiasco, I decided to risk it all and buy another. It arrived yesterday after much hand wringing and pacing. 

Well the newest one had Vista installed. VISTA! Vista. Sigh. All day yesterday and most of the day today was spent in abject frustration and searching. I won't go into a long diatribe concerning Microsoft (my Mac died which precipitated all this) or VISTA ( I hate it. Nuf said.). I will say that the other options at this point in the whole computer mess were many. None of them being the simple, 'take it out of the box and use it', option I actually wanted. So. I finally decided to 'downgrade' to XP and with minimal tinkering, Voila!, it works great. I'm up late customizing my desktop on my speedy working computer and I feel like dancing in the streets or at least singing in the shower. 

All this just reminds me that despite my trials I am essentially Solution Oriented. I wasn't deeply unhappy about all of this; even during the, "return computer and I still don't have a working computer", phase. The joy showed up though when I solved both the main and subsequent problems. Actual Joy. Dancing, Smiling, laughing aloud, warm feelings JOY! Wow. Just imagine if the problem I solved was spiritual or emotional instead of technical. What would that joyful result be like?

Self Imagining

I have no self-image. I've never had one. It's never really been a problem. Only when enduring 'self-help' in some form or when trying to remember the past usually for 'self-help' reasons does it ever become an issue. I don't have one now. If you asked me what I looked like today (or yesterday for that matter) I could only describe what I'm wearing or the particular style (if there is one) of my hair. Cold hard facts I can give you. Anything else is both irrelevant and unknown to me. I thought of all this this morning when while sitting out on the deck sunning and thinking about writing a morning blog post I realized that my shoulders were pretty tense and wondered for a brief moment whether my neck had shrunk. Then I got a blurry half formed image in my mind from a picture of me from my teenage years where apparently I was ALL neck. I was that gangly one with the swan like neck. Or so everyone else said, because at the time I had no 'image' of myself in my head. When I looked in the mirror I just saw me, a person. Not particularly one thing or another, not fat, not tall, not swan-like; just . . . me.


I didn't have the 'self-imaging' ability back then either. I had plenty of self-imagining ability. I could come up with whole worlds full of experiences I was going to have. Usually involving a bright red convertible and my completely fabulous friends and outer space. But as to what I mentally looked like, in reality or fantasy, the picture in my head was always a blurry indistinct picture. 


Through the years with the self help guru/ pop culture/ pop-psychology  paradigm shift and media influences I've heard many times that I was 'supposed' to have a self image and that it had better be good or else. If I didn't,  I would live a life full of misery and suicidal tendencies that would be my own fault for not 'believing' in myself. I dismissed all that mostly cause it never really bothered ME that I didn't have one and since that also meant that I didn't have a 'bad one', I figured it was okay. I've never looked into a mirror and saw something I really didn't like even when at age 20 I developed acne for the first time long after everyone else had gotten past it. I just tended to just make crazy faces and lean in real close to 'zoom' the zit to mutant monster proportions and come up with evil scientist monologues for it. Then depending on my mood I would take pictures of it and send it to my friends and family titled - "Introducing the newest member of the family". 


As for my body I thought it was great except when it came to buying clothes (or hugging) as I've mentioned before. It curved where it was supposed to, it dipped where it was supposed to, and in general did what it was supposed to do which was carry around my massive consciousness and act out various schemes and plans my mind came up with. Now here, all late in the game, I wonder if I should go ahead and develop one. It's mostly just a mental exercise though because I still make faces in the mirror (and yes still suffer from occasional acne) and still generally like what my body can do when I tell it to. Besides, why commit myself to one possibly erroneous viewpoint (image) when I can imagine so much more...

Me: A Definition

Wrote this last night in bed while my mind swirled and pirouetted in it's attempt to dance its way into sleep. :-)

"From Websters.com - Me: pronoun indicating speaker. Used to refer to the speaker as the indirect object or direct object of a verb. Definition: an act of determining; 2a : a statement expressing the essential nature of something"

Not to be Clintonesque but, What is ME? What is Define? What exactly is going on? More importantly what does it mean to define oneself? Am I merely a conglomeration of amusing yet occasionally harrowing anecdotes? Am I the ripe fruit of meshing ideologies? Am I just one of many or uniquely divine? Does an Event, a Trauma, a Past Deed, or a facet of personality get Top Billing on my personal marqee? 

How does one go about defining a life (well lived or otherwise)? Which voice from the Mist of the Past gets veto power? In other words, Who Am I?

That Time of Year

So it is that time of year for me . . . You know, the sharpen the wits, build the collage, get a new computer, spend way too much time wandering about the internets looking for the illusive 'writing software deluxe'. Yep It's Pre-Nano time! For those of you who don't know, (basically the one person who may have stumbled in here accidentally), NaNoWriMo or NaNo for short is National Novel Writing Month that begins in November. That makes October for dweebs like me Pre-NaNo Month. Click on the name to head over to the website for more info.

As for me, I'm revving up already. It's like a department store Holiday for me. It starts earlier every year. :-) So I've got my new laptop. It's in the mail should arrive today. I've signed up for Scrivener for Windows AND WriteWay. I've been eying my still incomplete previous NaNo novel with ideas of revision and am constantly on alert for any wisps of new plot ideas. Basically it's the night before Disneyworld over here. So fellow blogsters tell me. What are you planning for the month of November?

An additional note in the haphazard organizer of my brain is the upcoming Hunter's Moon followed by Samhain <Halloween>. Any plans or special events going on with you guys? And Can you tell Autumn is my favorite Season? :-)

Wandering here and there trying to unclench...

I haven't the slightest idea what to write about. So this post will be all over the place. I'm sitting here at this computer late and I should be celebrating. I have to admit I did do a little happy dance a few minutes ago but it didn't last long and neither did the celebratory feelings. I bought a new laptop because my old one died. Next month is NaNo, so I'm already gearing up for it. The thought of being without a dedicated (as in mine) computer is deeply unappealing. So I bought myself a new one and I should be celebrating. I was for a few minutes. Now I'm again trying to unload other people's yucky negative mess.

As for the laptop well I know it doesn't sound like a big deal. It is. This is the first thing I've done for myself in almost three months. Wow! I just counted on my fingers and so much has happened in such a short amount of time. Either way my focus has been outward for that amount of time. My focus being outward for so long has taken its toll on me. I haven't noticed of course (outward focus). I am tired. Not in a good 'yay, I did it' sort of way, but in a 'Just one more step and I can rest' sort of way. Tired in a 'I'll have this glass of wine and listen to muzak until I can unclench my jaw' sort of way.

So I have a slight problem with conflict. I hate it. I didn't always hate it or maybe I was just better at it before I got all mature and stuff. No cracks about that! :-) Actually it was just easier when I had a 'temper'. What I mean is I always HAD to deal with conflict and so without a choice I did, occasionally with necessary roughness. But then I found a remedy and though that remedy worked oh so well I find that I maybe (just maybe) want a new way to deal with conflict. My method developed slowly over time. Without anger I learned to let go of negativity in all forms in myself and my life. See I learned a hard hard lesson about choosing ones life. All of ones life. I learned that you choose it all; everything from the smallest joy to the greatest tragedy. That there is always an 'opt-out'. The consequence has always turned out the same for me, it is solitude.

I can choose my friends, choose my family, choose my home, choose my job, choose my mood, choose my reactions, choose my attitude, choose it all. I can literally get rid of anything I find unacceptable. Not that it is easy, simple, or the best choice to do so. If I get sick I can choose not to be unhappy and I can choose a procedure and I can choose to wake each day with a Joi de Vivre because it may be my last. With relationships it took me a loooong time to realize this simple truth that it's MY choice. Once I did, WATCH OUT. I was choosing left and right. Getting rid of all the toxic people I had surrounded myself with and standing firm and resolute in the choices. No matter how lonely, how isolated, how dead I started to feel inside. Those small (ha!) feelings were nothing compared to the hurt, pain, anger, resentment, and sometimes despair I felt dealing with those people. That's what I reminded myself in those dark moments. It's what I remind myself now that I find myself stuck in a rut now.

Because apparently I missed a lesson somewhere along the line. I missed how to cultivate healthy relationships. I missed how to make good friends that may one day develop into healthy happy family. I missed how to be in the world (not of it). I used to know that last one a loooong time ago in the distant misty time past I knew how to be in the world but not of it. I don't feel in the world now or of it and I can't decide whether that is an improvement or not.

I saw a Shooting Star yesterday. I made a wish spontaneously. Felt absolutely awe-some about it (the star not the wish). Shared the sighting with a family member and that person asked if I had wished for a specific horrible thing not happen to HIM. Corruption! Then another person joined in asking if it wasn't a falling satellite ("that hit you in the head" hahaha) or passing plane or etc blah blah. I refused to be drawn into such talk. I girded my loins against the emotional and spiritual attack. But there's a lesson here... A lesson I thought I had learned more than once. A lesson that doesn't distract from the positive relationship building but enables it. Must choose. Again.

Ah, these positive thoughts and feelings seem to flow like sand through fingers. . . Must unclench.