self-improvement

The Real Role of Ritual

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I spent a solid chunk of my life trying to figure out how I was going to save the world. Then I realized I couldn’t, so I decided to just do what I could.

I sometimes romanticize this in my mind as “I wanted to save the world, but I was only one person so I became an EMT so I could save people and make them happy. As an EMT I learned I couldn’t save everyone and even then I couldn’t make them happy. Then I decided to just give people more reasons to be happy and become a baker. That’s when it started working.”

That’s adorable and might make a good eulogy for me someday, but the truth is that’s what we all do. Everyone at some point fights with themselves over where they fit in the world, what they want to be, and what they want to leave behind. Some figure out, some resent the question and never do, and others just decide to let the world figure itself out and they’ll go where they fit.

I’m lucky as hell I found my way to baking and culinary. It’s not just a trade and career for me, it’s a calling and spiritual expression. I’d love if it paid more- who wouldn’t?- but it’s work that activates Heart, Mind, Body, and Soul for me and I can make something like a living doing it. That’s not nothing.

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“Lord of Yourself I Crown and Mitre You”

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“It’s goddamned exhausting. I’m so tired all the time.”

I’m in one of my favorite coffeehouses in Southeast, having just had a light lunch after my workout. A woman sitting across from me is generously sharing her table and its electric plug ins until a friend of hers is meant to arrive. We’re not talking, but I gather she’s a teacher- she’s in a hoodie in a coffee shop on a Sunday afternoon, flipping through resumes, books on pedagogy, and Classroom Safety manuals. I can only imagine what’s going on in her world at this moment, but I recognize the beleaguered groan as she clicks through her laptop.

When school children learn about this moment in American history, I wonder what the textbooks will call it. I personally vote for The Great Exhaustion- a moment in history where the only things there were plenty of were arrogance and opinions.

Photo by Photo By: Kaboompics.com on Pexels.com
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Learning To Be What You Need

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Would you have wanted you (as you are now) in your life when you were a kid?

I know it’s not always wise to start off blogs with a question like this, especially not one that “buries the lead.” Normally I try to start off a bit more gently- a good anecdote that puts the topic in context, or generally coming at a deep topic sideways. In this case, though, I feel like any attempt to answer a loaded question like this can only be given in story form. Ultimately, it makes us check in on our own stories. Has time actually conferred wisdom and maturity? Did we become the mentors and guides we would have wanted?

I don’t know, but I hope so and I’m always trying. That’s where stories help- we use them to understand character and how we write our own every day.

“Fairy tales are more than true: not because they tell us that dragons exists, but because they tell us dragons can be beaten.” – Neil Gaiman
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Listening In On The Anxiety

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Yesterday, I went for a long walk through Mount Tabor Park before it would start raining. It was finally a cooler fall morning and this was to be my workout for the day, so I made a point of enjoying it. I wore my favorite tweed vest combo, my favorite shawl, grabbed my walking stick and just did my Hobbit thing.

I made sure to bring my headphones with me in case I wanted to listen to music or a podcast on the walk, but I didn’t think I would. I haven’t lately, and not for lack of quality in my favorite podcasts. (Seriously, check out Old Gods of Appalachia, especially as we get toward Halloween here in the states.)

Instead, as I mentioned in my last post, I’ve had the time and bandwidth to get more curious about my inner life- how and why my mind does what it does. Historically I’ve used podcasts deliberately to blot out intrusive thoughts, break the anxiety spirals and derail rumination funks that can sap my focus and energy. In other words, they put someone else’s voice in my head when I can’t bear the sound of my own anymore.

They are still excellent for that, but lately I’ve had the energy to explore the “bad neighborhood” parts of my brain and figure out what’s going on in there.

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Making Progress

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I’m sitting at the bar at Toms for one of the first really autumnal days after a bit of a heat wave, just in time for Casey to fix me a Pork Roll, Egg, and Cheese sandwich- then chase it with a stout when they start pouring at noon.

I actually ate breakfast at 7am, but then I successfully ran it off, and proceeded to walk the thirty minutes out here for my Hobbitesque “second breakfast.” Of all the ways to refuel after a run, the PREC is a solid winner.

I’m slowly getting back into my good habits- I’m back to working out daily, eating better/less/smarter, and slimming down a bit. It’s easier to make progress than it has been in a while, and it’s because I have the freedom to slow down, take stock, and learn to accept.

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