Time Flies & Slows

This year is the year of the boar, (if I've gotten it right.) Got to participate in pageantry by holding up a forty foot Chinese dragon. It was quite a challenge physically because I was near the front, untangling bamboo spines and hoops, but was quite a fun time.

I was born in the year of the water snake in the Chinese astrology, in the hour of the dog - which makes me an awfully sociable snake lady. Do you know your Chinese astrological sign?

Was thinking the other day how time seems to speed up and then slow down, back and forth during the course of my life. What reason it does it do that? What do you think about this?

Perhaps, the more events being noticed means more of time slowing down. When nothing in particular stands out, the faster time speeds up...

There's a species of tick that sits around on a branch for up to nearly 17 years in a state of semi-hibernation. ...Until a nice warm body happens to come within jumping reach and it seizes opportunity. In only a few days, it feeds on blood, makes babies and dies. Can you imagine what its perception of time would be?

How does time work for you?

Make Time: Sleep Less

Sleep less and you'll have the time to be creative, make more money at a second job or whatever you want to do. But don't just deprive yourself of sleep - get smarter about it.

When I was going to Alexander Technique teacher training school and had to pay for it myself AND live an hour commute away, I came up with the brilliant idea of a split sleeping schedule. Went from nine hours a night sleep to a daily total of five hours with no ill effects. After around three weeks to get used to the schedule, it worked beautifully. I had no trouble keeping it up for over a year - so my experiment stood the test of time! Now whenever I want to stay up late for music or dancing, I can switch into that schedule without having to "get used to it."

I've become a "happy napper"! To my mind, the ability to nap is one of life's secrets.

The best schedule was a split sleeping time. Heard this hint from learning about a study with college students where the minimized sleeping schedule of 12 hours apart was the most common cycle tolerated by the most people. Decided to be sleeping 12 hours apart. For most people, how long to sleep two hours apart would be determined by the timing of their own sleep cycle. After experimenting with how awake I felt after sleeping certain amounts of time, I observed that the best sleep cycle for me turned out to be 1 1/2 hour plus a little time to get deep into falling asleep. So two hours was a good minimum cycle for me that gave me much more sustaining energy than a random "nap."

Rather deliberately because it worked into my schedule, I chose the actual times from 4am-7:30 twelve hours apart, which gave me two cycles each. It turned out that I could get by with the afternoon cycle being only two hours; from 4pm-6pm. It worked elegantly in practice. I would go to sleep at the end of the day and wake up, having all night to be awake...then go to sleep at the end of the night and be awake to have all day.

The only thing I missed is that I never got to see the sunset during the winter.

The trick to start the routine is to pick a time when you want to take a nap anyway. Turn off the phone, lock the door, make the room dark if possible - and it also helps to go through your nightly "routine of going to bed" rather than just treating it as a nap.

With this schedule, you could have two jobs, have more time for the internet or for doing your creative projects, have time for yourself while the kids are sleeping, etc.

Warning: don't let friends who show up from out of town talk you into skipping your sleeping times. You can't "catch up" later once you establish these times. You'll have to sleep ten hours if you get knocked off your routine; or at least I did the two times this happened to me.

Discerning

By nature, I'm a very discerning person. Meaning, I perceive subtle factors by nature, as a talent/obsession. Without even using much effort, I am talented at catching the subtle differences that may be making a difference. I zero in on them.

When I was younger, these were usually things I would spot that "stuck out". They seemed to need attention or fixing or were "wrong" in some way. I realized that I was attracted to things that I could influence, and that I gained a nice feeling from fixing stuff that could go wrong, or preventing calamity, as well as mitigating and sweeping up after others who were so directed at doing something important that they didn't have the concentration to deal with details...and the devil was in the details. I so enjoyed being there to put out fires when chaos hit the fan.

But as I learned some wisdom, I began to seek the things that could make a big difference that were not present anywhere or were not obvious at all. I suspected my means, which was to zero in on something, was not the means that would really bring me the benefits I wanted. So I decided to change my actions that I was using to bring about my desires. I decided to change my focus. Instead of "zeroing in" I decided to expand the focal length and regard the bigger picture.

I realized that it was a much more challenging possibility (and a much better use of my observational abilities and intelligence) to imagine what could be done to improve a situation by considering the whole situation. It took relationship skills to reassure and question people who were involved to craft solutions acceptable to everyone involved.

Pretty much anyone could just point out what was wrong with something or someone. It seemed that such judgments about supposed evil motives were so very often wrong. Think about it. People naturally gravitate toward the worst possible motive if they are confronting some event or some person they do not understand. Why is that so common? Because of the commonness of self-preservation.

It's a very interesting discipline, when you find yourself passing a judgment, to realize it is coming from a sense of fear or self-preservation in yourself - or others. It gets to be a very interesting challenge to imagine a reasonable explanation for the motives of the person you have judged to be suspicious. Or to find ways to reassure others that there is no need for their suspicions or fearful concerns.

Turns out it's a very handy and valuable skill too. Fascinating to come up with a reasonable and compassionate explanation when someone does do something in a mean-spirited way to their face. It makes mean people behave, even while they're thinking you're the most inane Pollyanna they've ever met.

The Curse and Blessings of Being Eclectic

I am very confused...I have my whole live problems, that I have a lot of ideas, creative writing, being a yoga teacher, playing a music instrument, painting, drawing and have business careers. But unfortunately, I have started a lot, like flamenco dancing, tai chi, yoga, meditation, painting but I don't do something to an and, I haven't goals for my life, what is very frustrating for me, but I don't know, if I am a scanner, or I have depressions, or fear not to be good in the things I do. I am am perfectionist. Do you think I am scanner? What could help me to cope, deal with it? Can I find one goal, what I can reach, go on?

Whoever said "Life is short, but it is wide." - they were an eclectic too.
Yes, you're obviously what Barbara Sher, career counselor, calls a Scanner. No, you don't have to choose between your interests, usually you can do them all.

The challenge (rather than to choose one interest) is to figure out how to accommodate your multi-interests into a lifestyle that works better for you. It's also a challenge of how to deal with the pressure from others designed to get you to specialize. You are not like them, you NEED to have multi-interests. They assume there is "something wrong" with you. You'll find out it is "something right" with you as you learn about Scanner-hood.

It is also a challenge to deal with the pressure you apply to yourself concerning this confusion. Most scanners buy into this idea there is something wrong. This pressure to specialize has been working at odds with who you really are.

You're a generalist, not a specialist. You're a swan growing up in a barnyard of chickens who tell you that you should act like them.

Did it help - or have you read "Refuse to Choose" by Barbara Sher? If you haven't read the book - it's available at your library, usually if you can't afford to buy it.

According to Sher, there are different types of scanners. For instance, there are the popularizers who jump from livelihood to livelihood. These types can learn to record their journey in some way to make what they naturally do useful to others, or another cool solution.
There are the virtual students, who keep learning.
There are the fast-motion scanners who can multi-task, (Barbara calls them "plate-spinners.")
There are scanners who cycle among their interests, or their multi-interests have a recognizable "theme" that's possible for them to make conscious.
There are also many more kinds of scanners, which are in the book.

In Refuse to Choose, Sher gives you templates about how other people who are scanners live their lives in meaningful ways that work to provide a living. If you want, you can use these examples to help you design a lifestyle that fits you personally.

The reason we haven't found these examples is that scanners are rare and unusual characters. Barbara Sher has a forum where Scanners can congregate together. It's a place where being multi-talented is common. There it seems as if EVERYONE is an eclectic!

What People See In Art

There are a number of motives about why an artist is making art. There are some factors in each case: to notice the artist's motives, to learn how difficult it is in factual terms for the artist to follow their apparent intention, and to come up with alternate intentions. The viewer's participation needs to be enough, in either case, to put together the content of what the participant is getting out of the art.

It seems that quite a few people seem to need to learn to understand how to be a participant of the art. My favorite book on this is a little-known book of the past called: Why Cats Paint
http://www.monpa.com/wcp/documentry.html

If an artist is making images to communicate, then they must release the content of the communication. Mostly because people are going to see whatever they see in the art! In a "really good" piece of art, a person will notice something different in it almost every time they look at it.

That difference may be reflected in what they believe the piece of art "is", it may be a detail, it may be a virtual question such as " is that figure coming or going?" which is something about what is apparently depicted. That is, every person may interpret the art to "mean something" a little differently.

This phenomena seems to work sometimes, even though the artist is self-referent. It depends on HOW the personal vision is displayed. This seems to boil down to - if the artist is an interesting enough person to start with, this will work for others. At best, the artist just displaying their "personal" building blocks is enough, so that the personal becomes the universal.

Snowboarding Santa Happily Merry

Guess Santa can surf too!

Tippy-toe Santas Delivering Soon

How fast does Santa have to go to do all that work on Christmas eve? Sounds like it will be a quantum Santa, but magic is magic, after all. Hope you're having fun being Santa this year, if that's your role.

Requests

Sometimes I get certain requests for specific subjects from my window painting jobs. Here was one. Dogs commonly would come to work with their people, so it was more than appropriate.

Flying Frosties

Blistering heat while I was painting this snow scene. Had to stop and get a glass of water...

What Santa Does On His Days Off

Many people spend time imagining what Santa must do on all those other days of the year he doesn't have to work. The answer is that Santa is a farmer, of sorts, who has lots of free labor to do all his assembly work. He gets the glory. Here, Santa is having a good time at the bowling alley in San Rafael.

Window Contest Missed by a Hair!

Today I did the outside of a classic car dealership that I've been decorating every year for the last thirty years. There was a windowpainting contest in the area, with prizes. Sadly, both the car dealer and myself didn't know that we had to register to win - and we would have won because we were the best!
The next one below is a detail of the one above. I did the lettering with three different colors of markers, outlining on both sides with shadowing.
Feeling festive yet?

Flying

Sometimes I get to make a picture of something besides classic holiday stuff. Like this bird...

Gearing Up For Window Painting

Got my markers and paint smearing equipment together. Now I'm on a mission to mess up people's windows for this year's holiday season. Yesterday did a really fun Santa on a bike for the Fairfax Cyclery. The guy who owned the store had the novel idea of trying to get more in trade for the cost of his window. So far, nobody has taken the bite, but he got a really nice Santa on the BMX. My apprentice Denise held up the bike while I drew it on the window.

Tomorrow on Friday I'll be taking her to the biggest job I do - the Marina shopping center in San Mateo. There are all kinds of businesses there - mostly small "Mom & Pop" stores such as a bakery, liquor, pharmacy, restaurants and even a barbershop. The place has a decidedly Asian theme, which makes for great lunch breaks. We'll have a great time, and we may even take a few more pictures of how the time got spent that we'll post here.

The hardest job on my plate these days seems to be cleaning out my RV. Unfortunately, somehow I aquired a pet rat who took up residence in the RV while I was gone. The challenge of finding a spot to schlep the stuff in the RV to is being solved by two friends of mine who have given me a place to stay. Thanks Martine and Gino!

There and Back Again

Now, it is November and I've flown off from the Big Island of Hawaii to mainland California since after election day. My objectives are to clean up my act and to paint up windows for the holidays.

Last week, I've already done a holiday window for a game store in Concord, CA. They deemed that having a winter scene with Bilbo Baggins in it would be suitably festive for the holidays. They mused that perhaps the same fantasy scene would do for attracting attention the entire year. This scene is supposed to depict the part of the story where Smaug, after talking with an invisible Bilbo, heads out to destroy the nearby town on the river. This was the first time this year's window painting apprentice got to see me in the mysterious act of drawing on windows.

Evidently, the story by Tolkien of "The Hobbit" is getting some attention in the news. Heard that Peter Jackson, who produced "Lord of the Rings" is going to be in on the production of "The Hobbit," slated to come out at the end of next year. So that's why it's all related and the images from the fantasy are going to be appropriate for the entire year. Hope it works for this game store!

After working, I discovered that next door to the place my apprentice and I were painting was an electronics store called Fry's. Wow, what a candy store. Went into there originally because I needed to replace the hard drive that stopped working on a computer I have that is still in Hawaii. Then I couldn't help but buy a toy which will allow me to create podcasts. (That would be a digital sound recorder.) Then, of course, I also found out that I had to have a little tool that created a USB drive on my older laptop that had been smashed so it didn't work...and on, and on. A hundred bucks later, I made my exit. But, it does means that I will have a way to make podcasts, a desktop computer, and a second laptop working now, whereas before I had only one ancient laptop.

Anyway, maybe this will get you into a festive mood already?

Bittersweet Nostalgia

I get a bittersweet sense lately. As a piece of music that must end at some point, our time together is limited.

Guessing that progress is cumulative in some ways. Maybe it also cyclical? I keep coming around again and again to a rash of activities that I seem to be abandoning at the same time. I drop the threads and pick them up again. Then I come around to the other things I dropped again and again.

Author Barbara Sher would say that I'm a scanner.

Perhaps this longing in me comes from words being sequential - we can't say it all at one time because we don't have the shorthand concepts to encompass it all in entirety. So we can only discuss pieces of the whole story, the whole life.

Used to think that I could bring someone I knew up to speed on my life - to fill them in on what has been happening. I'm beginning to realize that I can never do that. I've experienced too much.

Reminds me of the story called "Smoke of Memories" written by Jorje Borges about a young boy who has decided to isolate himself; he wants no more experiences because he has a photographic memory and his mind has filled up to the brim.