Writer Unplugged, Part 2: Living in Micro

January 14, 2025January 14, 2025 / The Black Hat Baker / Leave a comment

“The harvest is passed, the summer is finished, yet we are not saved.”
– Jeremiah 8:20

“Clowns to the left of me, jokers to the right/ here I am Stuck in the Middle with You.”
– Stealer’s Wheel

Surprising no one, when you make the call to leave extraneous noise behind, you are left with a lot of time alone with your thoughts. You get to piece together how and what you feel in the absence of others. You redefine who you are and who you want to be.

That redefinition happens in my rocking chair over some whiskey and a bit of knitting and a horror movie, in the car to or from work, or in my gym during cardio. More than meditation, those become my time for me. Without every randos bathroom thoughts on human rights and global macroeconomics corkscrewing their way into my brain, I come back to “What’s important to me,” “How do I feel about it,” and “What are my limits and boundaries of support for such things.”

I am, after all, a leftist Jew. If it isn’t folks in red hats hopped up on Great Replacement Theory that think making trouble for me and Emily will “make America great again,” it’s some mouthy white kids in keffiyehs who think pushing in my face will help “free Palestine.”

In about a week, though, 99% of the United States will wind up doing whatever comes next on Extra Hard Mode. Meditations and ruminations won’t be worth much. What’ll be worth more is actions on the micro-scale.

A frame of Treebeard the Ent from the movie “The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers” with the caption “I am on nobody’s side, because nobody is on my side.” — I invite you to ask questions of me personally before giving lectures and screeds in messages or the comments section. This is my neck of the woods, and I have a zero-tolerance policy for assholery.

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Writer Unplugged

January 6, 2025 / The Black Hat Baker / Leave a comment

Several things can be true at once. In my case, all of the following are 100% accurate:
1. I “chose” to be a writer.
2. I gained some weight in the last few years that I’m working on losing.
3. I practice meditation daily.
and 4. I always have to be doing something.

Besides my baking and wannabe-writing careers, I’m a guy with a lot of little crafts and hobbies on the side. It’s always good to be multifaceted, and the majority of my hobbies veer toward the cozier parts of life. I homebrew, I knit, I play guitar and harmonica (not in any bands, and not especially well- just good enough to please myself and some friends,) I read and enjoy good whiskey.

Over the last year and change, however, you would be forgiven for thinking one of them was “Losing My Shit on the Internet for Hours of the Day.” In my end-of-the-year post, I talked about how 2024 was about “coming back to myself” and relearning who I am. Part of that process is also deciding who I am not, and what I don’t want to be. When you love something enough to make it an important part of your life, you need to treat it like it’s important– and get rid of the stuff you don’t want to be important.

I’m done with having social media be so important to me.

“I sit beside the fire and think
of all that I have seen
of meadow-flowers and butterflies
in summers that have been;

Of yellow leaves and gossamer
in autumns that there were,
with morning mist and silver sun
and wind upon my hair.

I sit beside the fire and think
of how the world will be
when winter comes without a spring
that I shall ever see.

For still there are so many things
that I have never seen:
in every wood in every spring
there is a different green.

I sit beside the fire and think
of people long ago
and people who will see a world
that I shall never know.

But all the while I sit and think
of times there were before,
I listen for returning feet
and voices at the door.“
– Bilbo Baggins, The Fellowship of the Ring by J.R.R. Tolkien

Photo by Craig Adderley on Pexels.com

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Drala- Good Vibes To Avoid Drama

December 14, 2024December 14, 2024 / The Black Hat Baker / Leave a comment

Something I’ve come to learn and love OR hate about myself depending on the day is that I seem to have turned into the guy that everyone tells everything to.

It’s the part of working on yourself that I think broadcasts to everyone around you. As you learn to become kinder and safer for yourself, you radiate that out and become kinder and safer for others, and others respond.

Part of it is that, barring imminent danger, I’ve developed a pretty solid vault. I don’t pass along what people tell me, even when someone else comes along and I find myself biting my tongue- “If I could tell this person what so-and-so told me earlier, it could make things so much easier.” I’m no one’s messenger pigeon though, and I’m not gonna break trust for something as trivial as those conflicts usually are (in the grand scheme, anyway.)

It’s not that I’m really good at keeping a secret- it’s that I often either quickly forget or say “you do you” and figure it doesn’t concern me. I’m not a snitch, but I’m also no schoolyard hero.

The bigger part of it is something my therapist described to me, an idea in Tibetan Buddhism called drala– an energy that can infuse people, places and even things that isn’t “good” or “bad”- it simply is, and all it means is “take a breath, you are safe here.”

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Radical Acceptance- “Embracing the Suck” in Life

December 2, 2024 / The Black Hat Baker / Leave a comment

Here’s a bit of news that might be upsetting to some of my readers- or comforting, depending on how you look at it: Nothing the universe does is personal. The world isn’t out to get you, “everyone’s” not out to screw you. The universe and the world are neither cruel nor kind, they just are– and thank God for that.

Understanding and acting on this won’t suddenly make life easier or more manageable either, but it will let you focus your attention, energy, and will on what you can do about it, rather than wishing it wasn’t so. Again, it’s not personal- the universe doesn’t care how you feel about it. It’s waiting for you to decide what you’re gonna do about it.

Dandelions growing out of a sidewalk — Dandelions don’t register an opinion about where those jackass humans put cement. They just *grow.*
Photo by George Becker on Pexels.com

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“This Too Shall Pass-” Encountering Gratitude With Mindfulness

November 24, 2024 / The Black Hat Baker / Leave a comment

Having a “gratitude” mindset, a “gratitude” practice, or an “attitude of gratitude” can sound and feel a little weird. For myself at least, I like the idea of mindfulness a bit more just because being mindful inevitably involves being grateful- for everything, every moment, every unique second of your life- without leaning into overly humble-sounding BS.

Maybe it’s a bit of a linguistic trick, but follow me on this- it’s hard to take things for granted when you realize they won’t last forever.