Category: links

Deliberate Living

I’ve been thinking a lot lately about deliberate living — about making conscious decisions about what I want my life to be and being aware of how my actions fit with that image in every moment. I’m very aware that I spend much of my time living inattentively at best, but to live more deliberately requires not only a nearly constant concerted effort, but also an awareness of what I want out of my life to a degree that I don’t currently have. Now that I’m unemployed I have, at least in theory, more decisions to make about how I spend my time than I have had in a long time, and it’s becoming increasingly important to me to get as much life as possible out of each second of the day. Sometimes that means just closing my eyes and enjoying the stillness or even playing a game of computer solitaire, but more it sinks in that I don’t have to get in my car and go to work, the less interested I am in doing nothing. This has me thinking about what I do want to do with my time, not only on a moment-to-moment basis, but also in terms of the larger things I want to do with my life and the kind of person I want to be.

Coincidentally, I recently stumbled upon 2dobeforeidie.com, a site encouraging people to make lists of 100 things they’d like to do before they die. It’s not a new idea, certainly there are many “inspirational” stories about people making this kind of conscious decision to do something fun or interesting in their life and then going to incredible lengths to make it happen, but it is one that appeals to me. I’m trying to make a list, but coming up with 100 things is hard. It means thinking in both very narrow and very broad scopes about what I want out of life, but it’s still a small enough number that I think I’m going to have to make some hard decisions as to what makes the list and what doesn’t.

I’m far from done, but here are some samples:

Take a road trip with no time constraints or monetary limitations
Find my soulmate
Get a book of poetry published
Eat pasta in Italy
Watch the sun set over the Pacific
Watch the sun set over the Atlantic
Learn to keep things clean
Document my family history
Develop a coherent political philosophy
Develop a coherent spiritual philosophy
Watch the sun rise over the Atlantic
Watch the sun rise over the Pacific

Eventually I’m going to add another page with the complete list, and update it as I complete things. I’d also love to hear about what other people would put on their lists.

Megaera

Megaera

I’ve been published!

If you’ve explored the poetry section of this site you’ve probably already read the poem, but you can still share in my joy.

It’s a little tricky to find due to the layout of this issue, but if you follow the link above, click on the eye to enter the site, then select “Current Issue” it’ll take you to a little animation. On the upper right side of the screen will be a menu button. Click it, then find my name.

Yay!

“Liberty in Our Lifetime”

The Free State Project

The Free State Project, which hopes to get 20,000 liberty-minded people to move to one state and peacefully reduce the role of government in that state, has announced that New Hampshire will be their target state. They had early on decided that they would vote on their target state when membership reached 5,000 people, and they’ll start the migration when they hit 20,000 people. It’s an interesting experiment, and I hope that they reach the point of moving so we can see what kind of changes they’ll be able to make. I’ll even toy with the idea of signing up as New Hampshire is close enough to be acceptable to me, though I’m not sure I’m that committed to the libertarian ideals anymore. Most of my interest would be in the experiment, to find out whether or not it is possible to make that kind of change, and to find out whether or not the principles would work.

Organized Chaos

The Word Spy – flash mob

Not only is The Word Spy a cool site, but I am becoming obsessed with the idea of flash mobs. I want one. I want lots of them.

I’m not usually a fan of performance art or surrealism, but this strikes me as brilliant on several levels. It would be, I think, a fantastic exercise in information dissemination to get everyone to meet, a unifying experience in an increasingly disjointed world, and simply a spectacle to have that many anonymous and random people coming together all at once.

My mind is churning for ways to best organize one. If you have ideas, email me.