Suffering in style

Also: "Desanté" - Ill and weak, so so weak....

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Odelia here with Percolations #101. Welcome to the end of another dying week.

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There’s a particular character type I like to take notes from.

I particularly like the ones found in films, but sometimes you glimpse them in books and poetry as well.

It’s the fellow who struggles, suffers, and slips forward (and sometimes backward) in life, yet does so with style.

You see them in person, sometimes. The homeless fellow who keeps his pair of boots shining, his fingernails cleaned, who opens the door for you with a smile and gentlemanly nod. The restless twenty-something musician (with a messy garage for a studio) who dons a clean, pressed shirt — the same one you’ve seen him wear last week — before taking you along to a music jam. The immigrant guy working 16-hr days to send half his paycheck to his parents back home, yet works his shift at the gas station with rare honest humanness. The worn-looking, smoking longboarder in a hoodie and old pair of Vans who tosses his cigarette the moment he sees a kid around.

Little things that add up into a quiet rebellion against the ‘why bother'-ness a life of struggle and disappointment can so easily ingrain into us as default lenses.

It’s a subtle but insistent revolt: “I might not have much, but I respect who I am, and I know why I do what I do.”

It’s a way of carrying yourself that's a toss-of-the-head and a laugh in the face of poverty, stereotypes, and apathetic acceptance. A certain comfort with the entirety of who and what you are right now, humble pride over where you’ve been and the journey that’s brought you here, and a stubborn yet open-minded determination to be fully and wonderfully yourself for the rest of your days. It’s a refusal to let your circumstances dictate your presence, personality, or peace of mind. It’s accepting that you’re the god of your moods and habits; and that even if life issues bombard you right and left, you are ultimately responsible for what you become and the impact you leave on the people and situations around you. It's the spirit you find in Sir Percy Blakeney, John Galt, Rick Blaine, Christopher Syn, Howard Roark, Zorro, Irene Adler.

Sure, pain and struggle is part of reality. And no one’s paying us Netflix subscriptions when it feels like we’re trapped in a endless TV drama series or documentary, with all our problems and mistakes on display for our world to criticize and pick apart.

But then, who says pain has to be bleak, foggy, and monochrome? Even noir heroes have trench coats, leather briefcases, revolvers, and fedoras. And we can have our own versions of that too. Our own distinctive swagger through dark alleys.

It’s forgoing regular boba stops so that you could have a jar of local wildflower honey each month. It’s eating like a queen in terms of quality, while meal portions are pauper-style. It’s having leather loafers as your default pair of shoes by the door because they add a touch of effortless elegance to your outfit (besides, black fits everything). It’s taking care of what you have and using them to their full potential, and only buying higher quality items even if you have to go without for a while.

Sometimes you make strategic connections, do trades with friends, receive gifts from relatives, and scour the internet for oddities. There is that, sure. The will to live does have its gritty, humbling, and less instagrammable side. The flower grows through the crack in the sidewalk and blossoms into a brilliant, untouched beauty — but there are stones and dust among its roots, and its leaves, particularly the lower ones, may have shoe prints on them.

But for the love of all that is worth living for — and this is me lecturing myself for the twentieth time this week — LIVE, even if you’ve only got half-a-dime to stand on.

Buy secondhand, but buy what you love, buy only what adds value to your life. Learn design and put together beautiful outfits and interiors that work for you over and over again. Go across cracked parking lots to your scratched-up car, but don’t just walk — sashay, saunter, stride. Understand body language, movement, and posture, and train your body to move with poise even when stepping into a public bathroom. Behave like a lady or a gentleman, and treat others as such even if they don’t act or look like it. (What you wear affects how you treat yourself — take notes as you experiment.) Have coffee and tea, but grind your own beans and make your own tea blends. Ask questions, listen to the stories peeking out between the lines and tones of the people taking around you, and allow your mind to wander. Enjoy the luxury of doing slow, beautiful things at the pace they ask of you. Look not on lack as a cause for despair or self-judgement, but as motivation and opportunity. (It’s amazing how alert and active your mind becomes when you realize you’re cutting it way too close with your income-to-expenses ratio.) Learn at every opportunity, whether or not it makes sense to do so, and teach whenever others are ready and willing to learn. Develop a firm handshake that you only give when you mean it; an honest smile that welcomes and keeps a respectful distance at the same time; and a nod that communicates awareness and appreciation without aggressiveness. Hone reflexes with intention; keep your instinctive gut-checks alive and healthy; be observant not only to keep yourself safe but to be a safe space for others. Give genuine compliments that requires thought. Sharpen your mind — with language, math, poetry, art, the sciences — and don’t flex your prowess onto the people around you, but use that knowledge to build others up. Use strong language sparingly, if at all. Keep inside thoughts inside — complaints, gossip, intrusions.

Basically: Become the person Kipling described in “If.” He says it better than I do here.

But of course, your life is unique and different and special. So is mine, and so is my neighbor's. Outlines and suggestions like the paragraph above don’t work for everyone. But here’s where the fun part comes in — we all suffer in some ways, but you get to choose your style. It may change as life seasons come and go — but why not live with style when it more than repays you and doesn’t really cost more than what you’re already paying in dollars, time, and effort?

And so we reach the admonition to self we opened with: Suffer if you must — but suffer in style.

…I'd see myself out, thank you.

*dips a graceful, unique blend of a nod-bow-curtsy, does a two-step for no reason, and slips out the backdoor*

Odelia

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Quote for the week

“You will observe there,” I said, “a slight trembling. It is because I am afraid, the flesh is afraid; and I am afraid in my mind because I do not wish to die. But my spirit masters the trembling flesh and the qualms of the mind. I am more than brave. I am courageous. Your flesh is not afraid. You are not afraid. On the one hand, it costs you nothing to encounter danger; on the other hand, it even gives you delight. You enjoy it. You may be unafraid, Mr. Larsen, but you must grant that the bravery is mine.” — Jack London, The Seawolf

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This week’s word: “Desanté”

From The Dictionary of Obscure Sorrows by John Koenig.

Desanté

n. the brooding delirium of being sick, which makes time slow to a trickle and turns even the most pathetic of tasks into monumental struggles, until the act of lifting your head from the pillow feels like trying to climb a mountain, wondering if you’ll ever find your way back again, or even catch your breath.

(A riff on the French toast santé. Literally, “un-health!” Pronounced “day-sahn-tey.”)

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A Congested Mind

Ah, thoughts befuddled!
I'm in two-three muddles
About the many troubles
Around life now huddled.

*** 

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Snapshot of life

Visited an open mic with a buddy of mine — yet another dream come true! Here’s me doing a solo piece:

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Give this a listen

An older one, but a long-time favorite from REN:

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Recent random thoughts + life-bits

• Doing my best to source as much of my grocery list form local farms as possible! Picked up the most delicious honey from a meadery ten minutes away — the taste reminds me of the precious two jars of honey I was able to harvest the year I kept bees. Also: Mala-flavoured rice crackers are most amazing. They satisfy two kinds of cravings for me in one spicy crunch.

• I found a pair of Buddha pants in a fabulous thrift store, with textures and colors I can vibe with. I first came across this style of pants when watching a Jason Paul video nearly ten years ago, and wanted one then. Kinda tempted to get this one now…

• A wonderling: What is “real work” if jobs are so easily replaced by inhuman activity?

• A grounding pad would be useful to detox the EMF build-up in my body, now that I’m in a more city-like area and use WiFi more often. Not sure how to find good ones yet though — and is its effectiveness partly due to the placebo effect anyways?

• I did Leonardo Da Vinci’s little “curiosity exercise” at a Tim Horton’s yesterday: I covered the back of a napkin with 100 questions in one sitting. A neat experience, rather calming, and potentially eye-opening. Recommended! I had my students do this as part of yesterday’s class, as most of them enjoyed it — one directed all his questions to God, which is a cool twist on the exercise. The napkin in question:

• Speaking of questions, I spent a few minutes (that is, I hope it was only a few minutes…) exploring the sites on nownownow.com — a ritual for me whenever I remember the site exists — and came across this link on someone’s /now page: 50 Questions That Will Free Your Mind. Seems like a neat list to attempt to answer for myself this weekend.

• I found myself aching for a physical planner with calendar pages early this week. It’s a pain to have to fire up devices and go click-click-click just to check if I’m available on Wednesday afternoon at 1pm for lunch. But I already have masses of index cards, notepad leaflets, napkins, scribbled-on receipts, and what-have-you to deal with, which means I just sigh and hope things work out. Oh dear.

• I visited my family for Thanksgiving dinner on Monday, and had a lovely hymn sing with them before I left. It felt strange driving away from home at night…I suppose it’d feel more normal as time goes on. Even though a week at my new place has come and gone, I’m still feeling like I’m lost in a liminal space. The discomfort is part of the growth that comes with figuring things out, not something to hide from or deny.

• It’s believed that parents pass wisdom and knowledge to their kids; but over and over again, I’ve noticed that many parents don’t have time or energy to listen, discuss things with, and actually relate to their children — they only do when the kids are already doing their own things as independent adults, at which point the interpersonal communication (and the desire for it) is often at an all-time low. A tragedy? I suppose. They say actions speak louder than words, and goodness knows it’s tough making a decent living, let alone provide for a growing family with growing demands. The generational gap is also just a little too narrow to give the parents sufficient perspective and distance from which to “judge” their kid, but also too wide for peer-to-peer understanding and empathy. I think this is where grandparents — if one is blessed enough to have them around still — step in to fill the gap of being mentors and advisors. They’d tell you things they never told your dad or your mother, they’d be less shocked at the stupid things you do as a youngster (as my grandpa calls me), and they’d remind you to love and honor your parents while being patient with your parents’ struggles and emotions. They don’t say “You’d understand when you are a parent yourself, you have no idea of this now,” — they say “Now I see that this pain and conflict is simply part of life, and everyone takes their turn.”

• Got the deck of my longboard switched with another more suitable for dancing. Spent an hour-and-a-half last night with a wonderful guy who showed me how to take a board apart, clean everything, and put it back together. I now have an extra set of wheels, a heavier/less flexy board, and a new pair of Vans to go along with my board. All that’s missing is a helmet and a T-tool. He also told me about a lovely place close to where I am that’s perfect for cruising — I am so looking forward to riding soon. :)

• Part-timing lowkey dreams is a decent strategy for many projects, I think. Writing down the dreams somewhere then thinking of them every now and then helps to bring them to pass, even if it takes a little longer to actualize them than the ones you’re prioritizing right now. You start to notice doors and opportunities along the path leading towards those side dreams; and if you strategize just a little more than you absolutely need to, you might end up with space to chase after those side trails every once in a while. And then — just watch all the little bits of progress pile up! There’s no process to trust if you don’t design and stick to one, but when it’s in place and evolving along with your life changes, dreams do come true “effortlessly.” It's pretty darn cool. :)