Some days are hard to start

I wonder what it is that causes the mind to avoid the issues we really need to face? This morning I am having a great difficulty in getting to the work I know I should do. The kitchen floor and basement stairs are clean, dishes done, laundry started. All tasks that I have found while I try to get my mind to grasp the work I need to be doing. I can't seem to focus on a single detail to begin on. The tasks are appearing as whole with no handles. Many times I just sit during these freezes and do nothing but try to focus. Today I am going to try doing house cleaning chores. They need to be done anyway. Maybe it will help.

Reading too much may not be so good

First I should let everyone know that Sue had a great convention in CA. However, she is one tired lady. I will be picking her up in Detroit at about 10:30 tonight.

I have been reading a lot of news with Sue gone and it has made me think about subtle changes in the world over the last 50 years. When I was a kid the news was local and short. I would not find out about pollution in Brooklyn, Cannabalism in liberia, that sitting shuts down your metabolism, cutting calorie use severely, that workers today have a lower standard of living than in the past, and on and on.

Today we are bombarded with bad news. That is not the problem, the problem is how we deal with it. Of course people are not as happy today, they know too much and seem unable to do anything about it. What we are missing is training in how to keep that news seperate from our emotional world. All of this information is just facts. I need to be able to deal with them without being angry, scared and even terrified. It wastes time and energy. I may well be able to acquire the knowledge and do something with it, not just sit (slowing my metabolism) and whine.

Strangely enough it helps my mood just writing about this. I am not going to spend time trying to "craft" a discussion, I have a lot of work facing me, so this ramble will have to do.

Learning to Live

I've gotten a lot written today, so I took a short nap before moving on to the next job. After I rise from a short satisfying rest I find myself craving cheap potato chips like I used to eat all the time.

I realize that I have been conditioned by years of advertising and my actual needs are being interpreted by my subconscious in terms of my training. It is my job now to reverse engineer the craving. What I may be looking for is the extra oil in chips. So I am sitting here eating a popper of organic popcorn made with twice as much olive oil as I normally use.

Another observation that is crossing my mind is that the longer I am away from traditional TV advertising the more irritating and obvious it is becoming to me. I caught a couple of episodes of Life, an NBC show. I watched two episodes. I found them interesting, but I was agitated instead of interested. I proceeded over to itunes and bought the shows. Sure enough, it was better without the ads. Shows that depend on moods and layout to be entertaining do not survive well on commercial TV. I saw a show called Raines a couple of years ago. I had watched one episode and decided that it had potential. I picked it up at Itunes and discovered that it was, for me, one of the best shows I had ever watched. It was a lot better without the ads. The show did not last long and I'm sure the reason was the ads breaking up the shows flow.

Hey, the popcorn worked, my craving is gone.