I got a hunger

 pit deep bone deep soul deep

i try to kill it with food but it doesn't want to eat

it wants to satiate itself by consuming me like fire

is this why they call it a burning desire?

i've got a hunger to be used, like fuel to a flame

and in the ashes, find out what stays the same

i'm hungry but don't feed me, i don't want to be full

i'm hungry to be whetted so my blade won't dull

and use it to slice me and feed the soil of the earth

eat me to feed me, to my soul give birth

deumbiliclation

 the child in me will always latch onto the next pressure point

though i long for release from external pressures

in their absence my mind automatically searches 

for another womb to blame

for my softness and nakedness and inability to feed myself

let me be a toddler falling around on their knees

i want to scratch them on the surface as the muscles and joints strengthen inside

let me make noise and be ungraceful like it's to be expected

let me take all the steps rather than dress myself

as an adult whose adult clothes

are just another womb

let me be naked and rely on my own hands and feet

a child everlearning from every game's defeat

The older I get the more I wanna write

 to write lives i've never lived

and slowly feel like i'm never going to be able to live

i want to write about a woman that does everything and has all the energy in the world

and constantly gives

someone who takes care of their dad on his deathbed and lets him tell them his life story before he passes on

my body is so tired, though i may be so young 

there are stories i want to write that hopefully will pull me towards themselves

the un-impossible ones

creativity is a salve to my soul - a placebo in place of worlds lost, a preview to worlds that can still be, just not right now.

I've wasted so much time

but in a way, if i write

I might gain more timelines to live lives that are not mine

A Pointless Post about Dalgona Coffee

Dalgona Coffee will forever be tied to this time in my mind. 

It's already started. I made one today and found myself reminiscing about the early pandemic days. Has it been that long already? I was struck by how distinct those days felt. There it is: a now and a then. A subtle line in time forming without me noticing until I looked back and saw it. 

A few years from now, this now will get muddled up with that then. They will just be the pandemic days, altogether. 

The closer you are in time, the more you remember how distinct moments are from each other. The farther you get, you zoom out, some moments stand out, as the capillaries of time, little moments, fade out until you only see veins. Big events. A wedding, a pandemic. Both happened in my life this year. Zoom out even more, and then there'll be arteries. These are my early 30's. And then, they all connect and there's just you. At the end, looking back. All of the then's are one. And there is only one now, as there always was.

Some things will stand out, and many of them from the beginning of the more distinctly defined phases, when everything felt so new. Before the pandemic, very few people wore masks. Even after the volcanic eruption. After the pandemic, people started making bread, caring for plants, and yes, at the very beginning at least, making Dalgona Coffee.

__

I have a frother that I use, but I've seen many people use forks. It takes time. It takes the right amount of curiosity and frustrated energy. We already knew what instant coffee tastes like, what sugar tastes like. What foam feels like. Yes, it's interesting to put together; but to spend so much time making it, only to mix it all up with the milk because the foam will be too sweet otherwise, tells us a lot about the quirks of humanity.

Sometimes, it's not about the end result, but about the process. Finding new ways to make things. Sharing something with others, no matter how far away. Trends allowed us to feel like there was still an us during this isolating time. 

___

It's hard to feel like you're living in the moment, though that's really the only time you ever do live. It's easier to feel like you lived after the fact. That's a little sad, but there are ways to feel present during the moment. It just will never feel the same living something as it will looking back. 

Nostalgia is not what it used to be.

Looking at your life and who you are, the memories are what you first see. They're at the very top. Foamy, sweet, strong, but on their own, they are both too much and not enough. You need the stillness and the blandness, and yes, ironic richness of the present moment. You need to let the foam mix and sink deep with the milk is hiding underneath. (Now milk, you can definitely drink on its own. But for many it is bland, because very few of us have the choice to start with a blank slate. We have known sweetness and bitterness before. In fact are you able to truly choose anything before your slate has been un-blanked?)

All of the reflecting on the past can only be done in every present moment, and so we never actually choose between the two. Our choice is to mix or not mix. And how much to mix them up.

Unmixed, you get strong memories that can sweep you away, leave you floating on the surface of every moment, until you have to take a sip of milk to temper it out. By meditating, dissociating from memories and being completely catatonic and removing all stimulation by staring at your immediate surroundings... - this is the type I have been drinking. It's quite an emotionally turbulent way to live life.

If I had enough self control and could choose, I'd choose to mix the way I mix actual Dalgona Coffee. Mixing at the very top, leaving some intense flavors suspended at the top, and some milk untouched at the bottom, make room for surprises, for the end. Consume with a spoon. Take what you need, and be on your way, (and stop crying your heart out).

Of course I could just choose to, you know, just mix the sugar, coffee, and milk all up together, skip all of the frothing part. But I would argue, that though that may be fine for an actual cup of coffee, it's not a way to live life that is natural to humans. In this way, Dalgona Coffee demonstrates human nature pretty well: we could have definitely just taken life as it already was. Left nature completely alone. Kept wandering, scavenging, hunting, hiding, procreating, eating, and shitting. But no. What's natural for us, is to add to what's natural. In a way, we are what is actually supernatural about this world. We add to the natural. And yes, it often ends up going awry, but it's in our nature to try.

To look into history, though it may be long gone, to guide us in our way forward.

To collect knowledge and memories, and record them, for a future us, beyond our individual lifetimes.

To create art, be frivolous, and individualize to an astronomical extent, much more than other species can, because of our abilities to imagine and ideate. 

It's always been about the process, and not the point for us. Because the absolute, objective, pre-human point is that we all die, and we will all keep trying to avoid it the best we can, for as long as we can. But the process is that we get to live out moments, and remember them, even when they are gone, and imagine moments that have not yet come. And we so we get to choose the point. That's the real point. Or at least, what we've so far chosen it to be.

That we are human beings with human doings and human thinkings, but first and foremost, we are human beings. At least for a little while. We get to make our coffee however way we like it. 

the world does not get smaller when you choose a part of it

it zooms in and more details refresh

a sphere made up of magnifying glasses

go into yourself, leave out the rest

Self-ish Altruism

I don't mean using altruism as a way to serve the self, although there's definitely something to be said there. I mean approaching altruism from the self.

It's hard to find genuine concern and interest in the world beyond when we don't find a connection through ourselves. Empathy hinges on the motion of imagining oneself in another one's shoes. We must be able to imagine the pain within ourselves before we can sense that it must be taken away from another person.

When there is a lot of external pressures to "be altruistic", without using the path from inside, one would be taking action from a place of fear.

Fearing that they are selfish for not thinking of others, for not naturally feeling the urgency and gravity of other beings' needs. What results is action for the sake of action, of course, this is better than nothing in the grander scheme of things - many people doing the same thing for different reasons still results to many people doing the same thing. 

But I think that this kind of altruism will not feel as fulfilling, and neither will it be easy to sustain.

What is important to you? What things are you able to do? What causes are you curious about? Do you feel that you have something to offer that could be of use to others? Start with that. 

The man who has more coats at home is the one who is able to give away the one he is wearing to a person without a home, and spare a cold walk to his very own.

Fill your cup, and give from its overflowing.

 

I solation

 Let me be in my suit, where I can breathe

Does this count as an escape?

When I was born in Earth's atmosphere

Not in the vacuum of space

I'll take my helmet off and see beyond it

When I find my way back home

For now let me float alone in my suit

My little Earth, in this void I must roam

Misfit

 I wish I loved you, perfect shoe...

You're beautiful but on me you don't fit.

There's nothing like you, perfect shoe

But for you and my foot, this is it.

Whatever we cut, the toe or the heel,

the blood will show through the glass

Stay shiny and clean, wonderful shoe

Let me dirty my feet on the grass.

I can't keep you just to put you on a shelf

Your beauty is meant to be worn

By a lady who missed you, yet to be found

From whose perfectly-sized foot you were torn

I've danced with you on me, beautiful shoe

and we dazzled some innocent eyes

But to wear you I've strained, and I fear that you might

end up cracking for I'm the wrong size.

I love you, dear shoe, and to honor you true

I will keep loving you from afar.

You will be a great memory, beautiful shoe

No matter on whose foot you are.

psychological tumor

maybe you will find

the lumps you feel but can't find

are ones in your mind

teratomic lump

terrorific mental bump

toxified brain dump

you are not dying

malignant manifesting

is what you're sensing

extract that tumor

chemotherapic humor

your sword and armor

you are not that sick

paranoia is a tick

flick it, that's the trick

just get it all out

dissolve all the lumps of doubt

That's what it's about

my heart is shouting || i can't mute it out

 

but i'd rather be deafened by it than be without

the pounding of the drums

in my inside parade

will make my ears bleed

i can not dissuade 

the music from playing

the beings marching out

i cut myself open

to see what it's about

it's a festival for me

my worlds have been hiding

for oh, so very long

and now they are emerging

starting with a parade

a startling stampede

the banging and crashing

makes me fall from my feet

everything's in disarray

but at least i'm coming out

i'd rather burst out open

than be stitched together by doubt

Pinky Toes

I feel inwardly narcissistic and shameful of it, but I must allow myself to be, to let the full extent of creativity flow.

What is too much self? The self gets in the way: both in thinking too much of itself, and in prohibiting itself from showing too much of itself. ( ?? !!!)

As my life is now, I don't feel free - nobody is stopping me from being myself, but the roles I have taken up in my life constrict the flow of me allowing myself.

The self is a vessel of perception and truth. There is no way but through it, but we must also rise beyond it. What a dizzying task.

I am creating an environment where I can feel safe to let my negative feelings around using the words “Me, Myself, I” fall away, and get to truth. Making space for myself, without judging, or self-flagellating.

Art is exploring truths - daring to get into a state of existence, rawness, vulnerability, and emotion, (shamelessly), that may not be convenient or practical. Yes, it is in the fringes of reality. Yes it is an escape. But like bathing in the sea, there are ephemeral things that we have to momentarily experience to allow us to continue with the everyday and essential with more ease, perspective, calm, freshness.

I guess I'm finding out that I want to live beside the sea. Storms, sand, and all.

Art is Caring less about convention, diverging. Creating. Something new. Even if it’s essentially useless or frivolous.

Art is human. Like wisdom teeth. Like pinky toes. On our way to being this, life gave us a little extra. But it's part of who we are.

 It may not be essential to the survival of the body, but it is essential to the survival of will. 

At the end of my life, when I'm dying, this is the thing I'd wish I'd done if I don't. So the least I can do is let myself try.

Make a mess.

Read Yourself Like a Beautiful Book

Etched on your skin

Is a long story

Wrinkles of laughter

Freckles of time in the sun

Stretchmarks of expansion and contraction

And every change in between

Your skin is lined and dotted

With evidence of your existing

In many stories and places

Many still to come

I hope you never want to erase yourself

Though you may choose some of the writing

I hope instead of scratches of anger,

You choose ink, color, even piercings of healing

I hope you celebrate the canvas that you are

I hope the lines, the marks, and even the scars

Let you see yourself as a sacred book

One of many, but the only one of itself.

You are a work of art.

July 28 2020

The Big & Eternal Oof

"Pick your sacrifice"

"What will you suffer for?"

I think I may have found, that what I'm ending up choosing, is the struggle of finding my place, or having to question my validity as a human being every so often, because of my refusal to pick my suffering. I want to agree that in order to find meaning you must suffer for a cause, but something inside me can't agree to it. Maybe because my cause is different?

I feel as if the meaning of my life is something I can only find by going deeper into the quiet dignity of just... being... and accepting when I am not able to do more --and maybe being able to comfortably sit in that space, where I can look it in the eye, the fact that there are many things I cannot do, or that I can only do many things a little bit, and continue to be, and live, and experience life day to day, maybe that is the "sacrifice" I will end up choosing.

Maybe I'll never be proud of myself, in the most typical sense, and will just have to grow out of feeling like living up to whatever potential I may have thought I had. 

But I know I'm able to be happy. I've been happy many times. 

I'll just keep being here. Keep doing what's in front of me. Keep breathing, and keep going through.

I will keep my dreams. Maybe someday they will come true, but wherever I am is where I am,

and I am not there, *not* yet... I will never be there. "There" does not exist.

So I'll be here.

Better and better each time.

Go Bore Yourself

Trying this one out for size.

In a nutshell, when you're overstimulated, try to drop everything and do something REALLY BORING for a while to reset your brain a bit. I guess meditation does it a little bit too. Try to find something repetitive and uneventful and sustain it for a few minutes. This guy does things for a whole hour. Like watching the clock. That sounds very hard, but I can really imagine how it can work. For me, I'm going to meditate, make friendship bracelets, maybe do some handwork. Cleaning can be another thing. 

I'm desperate.

The Tao of Pooh

This struggle is part of it. This struggle is part of what you must allow to unfold. It will often not feel like doing nothing. An active allowing.

It's as much "floating" as you can do when the waves are trying to crash you down into the drowning deep. As much "floating" you can do while hanging from a balloon, being chased by bees.

But it is allowing.

You are allowing parts of you to become, through welcoming the ways they might hurt you and change you, maybe even improve you.

I'm afraid the path of least resistance is not the path of least discomfort.

Some discomforts are not to be avoided, if we truly are to open up to the ways of life.

Breathe into the tight muscle, and Namaste.

Post-post-post

So! I forgot to write this update yesterday, but here are my takeaways after my experiment:

1. Choosing to delay net-negative tasks takes the pressure off. "I shouldn't do that" sounds final and scary and makes your pleasure feel threatened. But if you just delay it for ten minutes, it's less threatening. And if in those ten minutes you find something more fulfilling to do, then great! 
2. It was unclear to me though, what to do, when the same urge comes after doing a more productive task. So I ended up doing one for an extended period of time. But the good thing is, I was able to truly enjoy it rather than feel nagged to stop the whole time.
3. The "ten minute" aspect of it isn't as important as just the act of delaying certain things and replacing them for a set period of time. The amount of time is arbitrary. It's the impulse to replace that makes more difference.

I will keep it short and leave it at that for now! Woop

Wheezy Waiter's Ten Minute Rule ... AMPLIFIED

How to Stop Procrastinating With The 10 Minute Rule

I'm going to do an experiment on myself. 

It is currently March 31 as I write part 1 of this whole thing. But I am going to do this challenge for the next day, and update this post with another post. A post-post-post.

If I remember.🤷

So, if you can't or don't want to watch the video attached, Craig's rule goes like this:

If there is something you have been having a hard time habitualizing in your life, that means, a good habit probably (hopefully...? otherwise .. why?), then tell yourself you'll just do it for 10 minutes, and then you can stop. That supposedly should:

1. Take some pressure off

2. If you get in the zone, and then have to stop, then you'll probably crave more. 

He actually times himself doing the things and forces himself to stop.

I'm tweaking my version a little bit, because of the "Be Bea" rule, which is to adapt every advice to my own personality, guided by the self-awareness that I've been trying to develop keenly over the past decade or so. (I got this from Gretchen Ruben. Her rule is "Be Gretchen" obviously. Just like the concept, the name should change to yours! be! your! self!)

So here are my tweakies:

1. If the action is important for someone else (like deadlines for work) I will not stop myself after 10 minutes, and then reward myself after to replace the supposed "craving" that stopping should develop (here I'm applying the Reward aspect of habit formation according to James Clear). If the action is just for me, then I will stop.

2. This part is more crucial for me - the flip side! These days I am actually never bored. As an introvert, I enjoy time at home far too much and can find myself drawing, playing guitar, cleaning, cooking, eating, playing games, or watching videos, or reading the news, or watching videos about games, or listening to news playing in the background while playing, or eating while watching something, or reading something while listening to something (which I keep pausing because I keep missing things, obviously - I do these on autopilot so most of them are very dumb things to do) or playing a game while playing Info Videos about the same game in the background so I don't know if I'm actually being hit by Zombies or it's just the video in the background so I go on split-screen mode and the computer gets fried and spazzes out and lags just when an actual Zombie is around.

Wasn't that super aggravating to read? That's what my brain is like every day these days. So as I was SAYINGGGG, the second tweak is that when a craving for a net-negative* action arises, I will tell myself "I will do it AFTER ten minutes" and do something relatively more useful for ten minutes. (*net-negative because I don't feel like any of these enjoyable activities are inherently negative! They are just easy to do in excess~ which makes them ultimately nega)

3. I will not use a timer, because knowing myself, the hassle will prevent me from trying at all. I have a huge clock in my tiny apartment, and a clock on my screens. And two watches I can see. Dassit.

Now it will actually not be so easy to decipher if a craving is pushing me to do a negative action when it arises all the time, so it helps to list down which things I consider to be possibly damaging for the rest of the day:

1. Gaming
2. YouTube (unless it's for a particular specific purpose and not entertainment)
3. Snacks (unless I'm really actually hungry)
4. Scrolling through any social media feed.

I can replace them with positive or neutral tasks:

1. Cleaning
2. Drawing
3. Writing
4. Exercising
5. Anything Creative Really

So I will update you tomorrow! Ok Go

Turdy Flurby and Trifling

Like in the film, I also feel like a 13-year-old in a 29-year-old's body sometimes.

So I'm turning 30 in less than a month. And guess what. That doesn't really mean anything. At least, it doesn't have to mean anything. It means what I want it to mean, and I think, what  I want to do with this point in time, not because I have to, but because I want to (OK Bea, don't hurt yourself), is to look at what things I've been working on. To combat any nagging voice that may come in the next month that might say "You did NOTHING with your 30 years of existence! You need to get up and do a thing!! What thing?! I don't know! But you have to get stressed over not doing it! Because anxiety says so!!!"

Things Bea is working on.. (.. are? Bea are? No, Bea am. Yes.)

Building Buildable Habuilds -I mean- Habits.

Yes. The H bomb! I dropped it! (no Bea stop) 

Everyone knows this, but habits are like that invisible ghost in your house that you need to befriend and get on your side so it can help you and not trick you. 

Okay, maybe not everyone thinks about habits in that way, specifically, but you get the point: The habits you have are the invisible, automatic forces that power your day - and so many of our habits are UNCONSCIOUS. You probably don't really think much about how every time you plop down the couch, you have to eat a snack that unconsciously adds 50 grams of added sugar every movie night. You probably don't think much about how you always have to check your phone every 10 minutes or so, even without the trigger of a notification. Or how you tend to eat the inside of your lips when you're thinking really hard (I'm sure many other people do this.. Right?? Please make my auto-cannibalistic habit feel normal? No? ok). 

Lately I've been trying to be more CONSCIOUS of my habits, because that's the first step. But just because you know something (I repeat this so much pero true eh) doesn't mean it automatically crosses over to application. With habits, your brain is always on the side of least resistance. It will take strategy to remove/add triggers and whatnot. I try to use trackers in my Bullet Journal and to just practice more mindfulness and intentionality during my day.

I recommend the book Atomic Habits by James Clear if you want to know more.

In my own habit-creation journey, I thought that it might do me good to set "Foundational Habits" first. Ones that can make it easier for me to form other habits on top. I tried to apply those first (very imperfectly, but don't let perfect be the enemy of better) to make the rest easier.

The Habits I am currently working on are:

1. Mindfulness exercises - I find this to be maybe the #1 "foundational habit", because it primes the "canvas" which is your mind, so you can paint on it intentionally. I'm quite poor at consistency, but according to James Clear, it's more important to be able to hold space for an action and do it repeatedly than to do it very well, or in the same way every time. So sometimes I just do breathing, sometimes I do the 5-4-3-2-1 grounding exercise, sometimes I just do stances or movements that I feel are soothing, or a short body scan... It's different everytime. Here's a podcast that details a few exercises you can do in case you don't know any  
2. Health habits - Unless you find a way to live life without a body, you need to be in a physical state that allows you enough mental and physical ENERGY to do the things you want to do. I try to be a little more conscious about my mental energy and physical energy by tracking them, and I try to see if there are patterns or actions that help or don't help so I can do more or less of them.
3. Learning Habits - Because I'm very bad at doing the same thing the exact same way every time as I said, I find ways around it. I try to be consistent in different ways. For example, I try to learn something everyday. Some days I practice French, some days, I read my books (yes, I'm the type that reads many at a time. I TOLD YOU IT'S REALLY BAD) Sometimes I practice guitar. Sometimes I can do all of them. But they only count for one tick in the tracker. As long as I intentionally learn something every day.
4. Creativity Time - I'm still very bad at this, but I try to "create" something at least once a week. It can be a blog post like this, a painting, a drawing, a song, even just recording a cover of one. Like the previous habit, I let it count as one tick.
5. Plannery - This year, I have been more consistent with my planners and journal than in the past year. This has really helped me find some continuity in my own life. I had some periods of discouragement with tracking, journalling, plannering, because when I compared mine to other "influencers", mine are far too inconsistent and fluid. But at my age now, I'm learning more and more that I can adapt things to suit my own personality. It's not all-or-nothing. Yes, it's better if I'm more consistent, but the only way to be more consistent is to keep going, even as inconsistent as I am. The alternative is just not trying at all. That doesn't help! Embrace error. Embrace failure. Be you, be better. Speaking of that...

Being myself is another thing that I've been consciously working on. I know, I know. The more you think about it, the less natural it is. This is a really philosophically confounding topic, so I'll spare you. But suffice it to say that I'm just trying to allow myself more space to be. To censor less, to trust more. To let myself find and do things I genuinely love. To remove more worries and make room for magic.

Being with others is another thing. One of the biggest "a-ha moments" I've recently had is the one where I read through the journal I've been sporadically filling out for five years, since Beardy first moved to the Philippines. It was very moving. I saw patterns in myself, and in my journey, and I realised that even though I feel generally stagnant, I've changed SO MUCH. And it pointed me to the next step I felt I was being called to. There was a page I was examining, which had a drop of water on it. This drop of water made two words disappear on two separate lines, so I couldn't really understand what I wrote fully. But it was a page where I was brainstorming what I could do with my life next. I have many pages like this, in many separate notebooks, and no matter how well thought-out the plans I write seem to be, there was always something that I could sense was missing that prevented me from moving forward. As I squinted at the two words on the page, I jokingly told myself "whatever these two words are, they're probably some secret code I need to crack to figure out what the missing ingredient is to all of this. hekhek." But then I got creeped out:

Because when I stared at it and tried to guess it from the context of the rest of the sentence, it seemed to have said "other" and then "people". OTHER PEOPLE. That actually makes sense and is really profound. I always stay on the sidelines and watch things happen. I've always been shy and afraid of other people. I thought, huh. Maybe it's my current mission to learn to look at actual people to serve and the "next step" will be easier to see.

However, writing this today, while procrastinating on my reports (my day job, which has been prematurely terminated for the current term because of COVID-19, is teaching kids) I now see that it actually says "smaller" and not "other" ... SMALLER PEOPLE!! My students!! I think the universe is telling me to get my head out of the clouds and to get back to what's my CURRENT DUTY because the opportunity is already here if I just choose to see it! My current job already is helping me be better at communicating and cooperating with people. Smaller or not. 

I have long resolved myself to not making the event of turning 30 into an enemy. I want to look at it not as a mirror that points out my greatest flaws and shortcomings, but as a mirror that lets me see myself, however I am, to be able to accept what is, appreciate what has been, and to be determined for what else could be.

LET'S GET IT 30! Stay silly, stay strive-y, stay free!

Some Notes About Notes

Steve makes it look SO easy.

I have, in my three decades of existence (I'm turning 30 soon!) amassed a formidable stack of notebooks. I've used them all my life and yet, I haven't made a system that TRULY works for me just yet. I'm too much of a Rebel when it comes to these things. I mostly write things down to get rid of anxiety, but end up relying on my memory most of the time anyway. Still, I want to keep working on making it work for me. Because as I grow older, I can rely less and less on my memory! It's already started. Sometimes I look at my notes and feel like a stranger had broken into them and wrote jibberish while somehow being able to imitate my handwriting. It's creepy. So here I am writing down notes about notes, and some things I thought I should do to make them work a bit better:

• During activities that require concentration, I'll make a note when distraction strikes. This serves two purposes : 
• If the distraction is an idea I want to pursue, this saves it for later so it doesn't get lost 
• I can keep keep focusing on the task at hand by replacing the pursuing of the thought with the jotting of it down.
• Be more specific about the call to action - many times, I end up jotting down something really vague (like just today, my notebook screamed at me saying "BIRDS!!!" and I'm like.. Okay?) and so when it's time to visit the notes I have no idea what I meant
• When note taking for songwriting, I should write the date and record the tune on my phone. I've lost so many songs this way.
•  Make a habit of revisiting the notes. I know, "make a habit" is SO MUCH HARDER to do than to say, but well. That's what it takes.
• Sometimes, I revisit something and it doesn't feel so exciting anymore. So... Take what you will with that. Either "strike while the iron is hot" or "maybe it wasn't so interesting" both are probably true. I have to make your mind up about what to do with that.

None of this ultimately matters for anyone but myself, so I get to decide what to do, how much I can enjoy it, how much time to spend on it, etc. Sometimes you just have to do right by yourself.