/reader

A song I’m loving:

September’s turning of light is bringing a veil-is-thin energy to my spirit. This sense of, something is ending and I don’t yet know what that something is. This sense of, things are changing and I don’t yet know where the change is leading. This sense of, it’s time to release, release, release — it’s time to let go, set down, be done — it’s time to shed the skins that have been hanging on too long, the ones that have been begging to be left behind so something more true can take their place This sense of, it’s time to let the discomfort do its work, rather than avoiding it and thus avoiding the changes your soul is longing for. This sense of, it’s time to bring your fear with you instead of letting it keep you stuck in what is asking to be broken open, felt, composted, and turned into something more alive …is it the same for you, or is it just me (I know it’s never just me, thank goodness)?

It’s a tender place to be, standing on the precipice of an uncertain next season. It’s a tender place to be, dangling between past versions of you that have served you well and new versions that are ready to burst forth with autumn’s hues. It’s a tender place to be, wondering if you’re really ready to embrace the changes your body, heart, relationships, work, and life are asking of you — not to mention the changes a more beautiful world is asking of all of us. It’s a tender place to be, the unsureness. The wobbliness. The Beginner’s Mind. The I’m out with lanterns, looking for myself feeling. The knowing something is asking to die, but not yet knowing how to surrender. Or perhaps knowing what needs to die, but not quite feeling ready to acknowledge it to yourself. It’s a tender place to be.

We are all always standing on some precipice, aren’t we? Always in motion, ever-changing, forever morphing into some new shape, some new way of being. And yet the fear of these changes, of the endless and inevitable unknown, doesn’t seem to go away. No matter how ripe I am for something different, I still find myself clinging to the branch, desperate to hang onto where I’ve been instead of letting myself free-fall into the next necessary place. No matter how ready parts of me are for change, I still notice myself gripping onto old patterns, old ways of seeing, old strategies, old refusals, old versions of me that still aren’t sure I can be safe without them. No matter how welcomed something fresh and more aligned is, I still witness my desire for comfort often ringing louder than my desire for truth, for congruence. Can you relate?

As I find myself in another place of feeling like something is about to change but not quite knowing — or perhaps not quite being ready — to name what that change will bring, I am telling myself I can’t force letting go. My protectors might need more time being reassured it’s safe to step out into a new sky, a new way. My younger parts might need more tender strokes of the hair, whispers of “it’s okay, we’re okay”, reminders of just how much safety we’ve built for ourselves. My current self might need extra gentle care, right beside some firm nudges out of the nest of What Has Been and deep trust in my capacity to meet whatever may be coming with wholeheartedness. I try to offer myself what I need before ripping off the doors and pushing myself out. I try to let the unfolding take the time it takes, nurture my impatience with love, tend to my desire to know with the kind of compassion that bolsters my courage and strengthens my flexibility. And I try to do all of this while honoring the ways my slow, gentle tending can sometimes be another form of extending waiting, another way of avoiding what must be done.

If you find yourself on a precipice, standing at the edge of something unknown, stepping out of the cave into a new way of being and seeing that still feels far too vulnerable to truly take on… know the vulnerability of it is a through-line to your heart’s longing. Know you get to take all the time you need… and also, sometimes the most compassionate thing you can do is stop waiting. Know there is wisdom in discerning between necessary slowness and avoidance. Know there is such beauty in your willingness to listen to the nudges, to step out of comfort and into wobbly resonance, to allow yourself to be shaped by what is being asked of you. Know stepping into something new might bring the very thing you’ve long been trying to find in the outdated, stale ways of being that are now begging to be released. Know it’s okay to be seen trying, to be seen in your earnestness. Know you don’t need to get it right. Know there are pockets of safety you can access inside and outside of you. Know there is no arrival, but there are layers of presence available all along the path and endless places to land for respite and beauty. Know there is deep courage in your listening to the call and answering it, even without knowing where it will lead.

It is not easy to let go of what has been comfortable in order to embrace what is needed now. It is not easy to confront what is ready to be composted and trust the letting go will create space for something more true, more you. It is not easy to hold awareness within a world that makes numbing feel rewarded. It is not easy to stay close to your own heartbeat, your own desires, your needs. It is not easy to peel back the layers and let who you truly are underneath reveal itself… over and over and over again. It is not easy to imagine what life will look like on the other side of the shedding, on the other side of the unknown.

And yet it is in the willingness to stay with the unease and let it move us toward aliveness that we find our own courageous spirit. It is in staying with the discomfort that life reveals what’s next to us — that we access our clarity and trust to move forward. It is in staying close to the inner nudges toward what’s next that we deepen the language of our own trust, our own fortitude, our own ability to catch ourselves as we leap again and again. I see this courage everywhere: in nature, in all who are weaving change, in all who are choosing to free-fall into an unclear knowing, in all who are facing their own precipices heart-first. I’m with you in the free-fall. I’m with you in the choosing to listen. I’m with you in the wobbly step after step after step. May it lead to the next truest place, to the next truest version asking to come alive.

Thank you, as always, for being here.

△ The gift of love

△ Your phone or your life?

△ This beauty

△ A new album on repeat

△ “The problem is not friction itself; it’s what we do with it.”

△ A thousand tiny goodbyes

△ Awakening trust in a fractured world

△ Learn to be still

△ Peering out at the world with her

With care,
Lisa

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Now I’m part of this chain reaction too. A beautiful example of the community side of blogging. A digital picture of the internet as one giant web, a connection reaching past the physical realm.

But that’s not quite what I want to bring to the discussion. I agree with Manu’s advice about linking and commenting, and I practice it too, yet my thoughts on logliness (from the ancient Latin loglinus) wander elsewhere.

The first thing that comes to mind is that loneliness isn’t a measurement. Someone might feel lonely at a concert with tens of thousands of people. Someone else might sit alone in a hotel room and feel in great company, just by thinking of their book circle back home.

Just because we can’t feel the company doesn’t mean it isn’t there. Just because people don’t upvote, share, or comment on our posts doesn’t mean we don’t have a grateful audience. We may not hear the applause, but that doesn’t mean no one’s watching.

Perhaps it’s the loud rush of modern life that turns silence into loneliness. We’re haunted by validation. Stalked by likes, stats, ratings, follower counts, scores.

Maybe embracing the silence is the group hug we need to feel a little less lonely.

Update: Sacha Chua has written a beautiful follow-up: Writing into the quiet.

🦸 You're my hero! (For using RSS to follow my blog.) 🥇

Each time I have to search for a new dental professional it is a nightmare. In most scenarios I can simply wear my own n95 mask and somewhat ignore what the other person does because I trust the protection of the n95. One-way masking is not 100% foolproof, but beggars cannot choose in this climate. Going to a dentist is one of the highest risk settings for the covid cautious because our mouths are wide open to anything that is airborne in the room. I have been to dental appointments where one of the dental team is coughing or sniffing. Covid can also be transmitted asymptomatically (asymptomatic infections apparently can account for up to 45% of the spread). Hence I request for the dental team to mask with n95s, and that is a very difficult ask in a world that is not informed with science. Nobody believes covid is a thing, nobody seems to know it can be transmitted asymptomatically, and worst of all nobody knows how airborne transmission works.

So most of the time they think I am nuts for making such a request. I guess I would think I am nuts too, if not for the ongoing existence of scientific journals and the very small covid cautious community. Sadly, the growing long covid community is also reaffirming my ongoing efforts to be covid cautious. People I personally know have also admitted that they are experiencing worrying symptoms since their infection.

Thanks to modern messaging I could simply text or email clinics and make my request. They could either accept or reject me and I could move on. But I was still severely stressed. I knew intellectually I was experiencing more stress than warranted. Having to explain myself over and over again to a disbelieving society exacerbates this stress.

This whole process is extremely triggering for me. I have trauma from my childhood when it comes to being disbelieved, being rejected, being ostracised, being minimised, having to over-explain, feeling small and weird. A lot of these comes with growing up neurodivergent, upon hindsight. Our society likes to penalise people for being odd, and kids suffer the brunt of it because they have not developed enough selfhood to defend themselves. “Why can’t you just be like others?”

Therefore being covid cautious is actually very triggering for me. Because it is the same traumatising feelings again: being disbelieved, being rejected, being ostracised, being minimised, having to over-explain, feeling small and weird. I believe at least 50% of my ongoing depressive feelings can be attributed to the ongoing pandemic. The feelings just keep occurring: over and over again. It doesn’t matter how much I age, how much I know I am justified. It is definitely better compared to my younger self, but still very stressful.

I think if not for my partner I would cease to exist in this world. What is the point of living in a world where I am obviously not a good fit for? Each passing day feels like misery. It is not just about my traumatic feelings, but also the lack of optimism and hope in a world that is full of denial and exclusion. Many people in this world likes to step on others to stand tall, and it continuously makes me sad.

I don’t know how I can be not depressed when the conditions are such. It would require a lot of deliberate ignorance and disassociating. Then I guess the question is: how do I make myself survive despite it all?

Thankfully I have gotten a number of positive responses from the select few clinics I messaged. There were also a couple of negative responses, but in the minority. Maybe there is some compassion in this world after all. Though part of me feels that this isn’t about compassion or accommodation, but rather science. To protect my health I have to be profiled as the hypochondriac or the sickly person even though I am probably physiologically healthier than many at this point. But I guess I still grateful to be profiled and accommodated rather than none. There are people in other countries who are getting ridiculed and gaslighted by their medical professionals, or their medical systems may not have given them a choice at all – so I will not complain.

There is so much loneliness and uncomfortable feelings that come with being covid cautious, but without my health I am nothing.

I’ve been reflecting a lot about my rejection sensitivity dysphoria, an perhaps of all my health conditions I consider this to be the most disabling for now. I can do a lot for my physical health, but there is very little to what I can do about my physiological reactions to stress and rejection. I feel like I was born with this neurological wiring. I just feel sensitive to everything. I have learnt to cope with it better as I age but it is still very exhausting. I don’t think it ever goes away – I just get better at putting layers over it. And sometimes, the layers crumble.

This world is not kind to people like me. We’re just perceived as weak. In a just world the weak gets more protection, but here we are just the butt of jokes. All my life I am simply told to just be stronger. I am the one with the character weakness and hence I must fix myself. Or else I do not deserve a place.

What is the point of this again?

I am so lucky to be with my partner, who sees my so-called weaknesses as strengths. But she can’t process my feelings for me, or prevent the pain I feel on a daily basis. Without her I don’t feel incentivised to be alive at all. I feel strangely amused when people insinuate I should earn my place – but to me it is like why?

Still I keep on going, hoping to find some insight or perhaps grow into someone else. It feels exhausting. I try to distract myself from the exhaustion. The veil doesn’t work all the time. I can only tell myself to learn to co-exist with my self, and to develop the compassion I need to endure being in this world.

New demo app. FeedLand communicates back to the client app via websockets. This is absolutely the easiest way to get flow from feeds to apps running on servers or in a browser, or other desktop app. Websockets is a mature standard, and incredibly useful. I'm now working on a toolkit for it, along with all the other projects going on in parallel, so other developers can hook into FeedLand to get the flow of new items. The demo shows you the JSON version of every news item as it appears on the wire. There's no limit to the kinds of apps you can build for this. My friend Chuck Shotton has a market-predicting LLM app that gets its news this way. Nothing to install on a server. FeedLand does all the work. I expect to have a toolkit out sometime in the few weeks. #

Another application for websockets. You could actually put a web server on your desktop without exposing your home network to the world. I can't wait till I have time to play around with this. #