Trigger Warning

It has been a long time since I wrote anything other than a book review that I'd share any more publicly than instabookchat. That is because it is hard to voice vulnerability when you are so far from home.

There are many reasons for that: Upsetting family who are too far away to help you; Worrying that your thoughts may scare the natives; and being publicly shamed for opening up on the whipping ground that is the Internet.

There are more but those are most certainly the top three that hinder my thought sharing.

What triggered this and many other things was waking up this morning to hear that Anthony Bourdain had committed suicide.

Truth be told, I had seen a few episodes of his different shows, read a little of his writing and knew he was dating a fabulous woman 20 years his junior. I wouldn't call myself a fan or a hater. He was the sarcastic loud American travel guy who managed to avoid being cringeworthy while educating Americans on the world outside their small untravelled world.

There are a few things that have bothered me about this whole situation that I feel must be addressed. Surely others will articulate it better but if I don't say it now, I will feel negligent. Negligent to those who suffer from depression; negligent to those who don't; and most certainly negligent to my own mental health.

Having suffered sever clinical depression for 3 years in my early 30s, Bourdain's and Kate Spade's deaths have triggered my biggest fear.

That fear is that I could find myself in that dark place again feeling that there are no other choices to escape the pain than to quit the whole game. I have too many tools now for that. I know when to ask for help and when to voice my pain to others so that the darkness never returns. But, and it is a loud and cautious but, what if there is a situation so dire that I don't get to catch myself before I fall?

News reports keep saying he was happy (even giddy) a week before his death so he can't have been depressed. That is the most naive nonsense I've heard in a long time.

Triggers don't take time to build up to make you snap. They are stressors that happen in an instant and cause you to immediately return to a mental state where you were at your worst. It is as if you never left the dungeon and the darkness. It feels like nothing else good has ever happened even if you were smiling last week.

Therapy teaches you to be mindful and catch yourself in those moments and then apply your tools to stop yourself from spiralling. Those tools may involve asking others for help, negating the lies your brain tells you or not making any decisions until you are safe enough to do so. There are many tools to help a depressed person but sometimes, Sometimes the pain is so overwhelming that you can't even breathe let alone catch yourself.

For all the education out there, those who have not suffered mental illness (and some who have) don't get it. They don't understand how it works and how you don't.

We live in a society that wants to talk about it but we also don't want to because those who understand are afraid of triggering their demons.

This is hard to write. This is hard to say. But the pain is real for many.

You don't get over depression. Not really. You just learn to function and not be frozen in time by the pain. The fear of returning may be irrational but when you watch someone who rebroke and didn't escape it, the fear feels real.

Talk about it. The world is a better place for having you in. Me too.

2016 Didn't Suck

As an eternal optimist, it takes some effort to listen to the way people are voicing their dislike of 2016. Despite what I think, it is important that I do listen and try to understand why people are so disappointed and dismayed at the last 11 months.

In my short 40 years on this planet, I've seen the world change in ways I did not expect. Events like the 1989 Tiananmen Square protests;  the Arab Spring; the Collapse of Apartheid in South Africa; and many other pivotal moments/revolutions/movements.

Apart from political disruption and change, just this year there have been significant discoveries in science like mapping the epigenome; surprise concessions from religious leaders like the Pope allowing priests to absolve people of sins of abortion (no, I'm not religious, just surprised);  and the undeniable rise of Corpratocracy.

There are people swearing about the death of legendary entertainers from our lifetime. There are people screaming at people who voted a different way to them. There are people throwing their hands in air not knowing what to do. A lot of people think this year was awful and that the world is going to hell.

I don't agree.

Has the world all of a sudden become a cesspool or are we just more aware of what is going on?

I believe it is the latter.

The slow questioning of mainstream media, the rise and rise of social media and the increased pressure for individual critical thinking is pulling people away from their cat videos and making people think.

Conspiracy theorists are running with this. Liberals are smugly nodding that they told you so. People who took TV and newspaper news as gospel are the ones who are finding this the most revealing. They are wondering if anyone can be trusted and are now looking for new leadership. I truly don't know the answer but I have faith in people doing what is best for the group and not just themselves.

These are interesting times. Thing is, they have always been interesting times. People are now awakening to the fact that mowing their lawns, finding bargains online and watching the Kardashians may not be all that matters.

Realities may have to be readjusted. People may have to give when they once took and take when they were once taken from. Societies may have to take a long look in the mirror and decide how to improve.

As an eternal optimist, I don't think this is a bad thing. It is an uncomfortable awakening but an awakening all the same.

A week of not buying everything I want

Wow, is it difficult to not shop online constantly when you live in the US and work for Amazon?!

It's what the company I work for does best. Not just them but every online company in the US.

I can order everything online and have it delivered to my home with the only human inconvenience being dealing with my delivery guy (I joke):

• Instant groceries via Prime Now and Instacart, if I'm unwilling to wait a day for Amazon Fresh, Safeway and QFC;
• Christmas trees and people to pick up those Christmas trees when done;
• Petrol/Gas for your car;
• A massage at home;
• Organic tampons;
• Furniture. Yes, every single piece of furniture you can imagine; and
• Anything else you can imagine.

We live in the future and I want my flying car!

You think I joke, but I have pre-ordered two Star Trek: TOS Bluetooth® Communicators. One for my sister and one for myself.

We live in a time when you can get anything you want. My smartphone is more powerful than the computer that landed man on the moon. My speakers hear my commands and turn my house lights on and off , read me the news and tell me the weather or time if I'm too lazy to lift up my so smartphone.

It is so easy to buy. It takes a level of mindfulness to wake up after a goodnight's sleep and cancel that order of plastic garden flamingos. Yes, that happened last week.

People joke that we once had arguments about facts and now google (with a small 'g') everything and Snopes it on the spot. I extend on that and say that we have a conversation and can act on every whim and buy any damn thing we want.

But do we need those things?

This week, I have decided to not by anything that I do not NEED. When I say need, it must be essential to my survival or maintaining my basic standard of living.

In the spirit of a good Amazonian, I decided to keep a Wish List of A Week of Wants and refuse to buy anything that didn't go under the banner of essential.

I'm not saying I will buy them in a week but I am keeping a list of everything I would have purchased given the chance.

This will be both informative and confronting.

Would you face your inner consumer and not be disgusted?

Goodbye 2015, you rocked!

Oh wow. What an amazing year!

I moved to the US and settled in a little town called Seattle. It is the home of Amazon (work), Microsoft, Boeing, REI, T-Mobile, Theo Chocolate, Nordstrom and many other countries.

Awesome things happen here and yes they did.

This year brought me some brilliant new friends.
This year brought me my centre.
This year brought me love and then heartbreak.

It is a wonderful and successful year.

I don't even know how to thank everyone. How often do you live a year with no regrets? Let's do that again.

Thank you to all my friends.

xx

Writing Again

The writing stopped when the reading started. The chaotic reading that consumed every alternative hour. The balance was lost. The loss was missed.

And so it paused and was parked and was mute. I was mute.

It is odd that we have a finite amount of time. Some days that hits me and other days it feels like we have forever. It seems only to be a hard limit when the wall appears in my face while I'm moving at light speed.

It is time for more balance. For some damn balance. For a semblance of balance at the very least.

Lets do that then.

The Tao of Pooh

Book 33 of 2015 is The Tao of Pooh by Benjamin Hoff.

There is nothing to not like about this book. I am even now considering if I'm an existentialist, as I once thought or a Taoist. I do know that I am part Pooh, part Tigger and part Eyore. That's not a bad thing.

5 honey pots out of 5.

Should I read this? You should read this if you like learning about new ways of thinking or you like Winnie the Pooh.
What did I learn? You will learn not to sweat the small things.

Leave it better than when you found it

I will always post too many quotes, too many pictures of cats doing cat things, too many shots of food as I make people wait to eat, too many posts of shoes and possibly too many photos of myself. You will hear my happiness most of the time but sometimes my sadness, my contemplation, my exasperation and my wonder. There will be inane questions and tipsy checkins. Maybe shallow ponderings and epics revelations. Some days I will make you cringe and other days I will make you smile.

Either way, this is me. We do this once. Just once. Really, only once. I shall do it my way. If you can live with that then... good. If not, so be it. I gave up on cool when I was 12 years old and have been happy ever since. Now, I just want to be kind to myself and those I care about. Let everything be what it is and be ok with that. Own my choices and their consequences. Live the best life I can while treading carefully.

That is me.

How I Learnt to Concentrate Again

Many years ago now, I went through a bout of clinical depression. That sickness killed my concentration span. I could not read more than one or two pages of any kind of book before feeling sleepy. As soon as I put the book down, I was alert again.

My concentration span was pathetic and not improving.

In October 2012, I watched a badly shot video of Joe Kraus from Google Ventures who introduced the idea of Gap Time and "Slow Tech" to me.

The basis of the idea is that we live in a world of constant distraction and that paired with our evolutionary tendency to respond to stimulus has resulted in us heightening that skill and reducing our concentration spans. Technology in particular has been a culprit in this decline.

His fix for this was to suggest that we take time to not be distracted. Down time for your brain. That meant not picking up my phone when I was sitting waiting for someone at a cafe; not turning on music or a podcast in all my down time; and simply letting my brain spend time background processing.

Since taking on board this approach and spending a lot of time not doing anything with my brain, my concentration span is quite amazing. After 6 months, I could read up to 200 pages without feeling drained or distracted. After 18 months, I can read a book cover to cover without pausing... at least when I have the time to do so.

For me, that is a quantification of how my mind has improved by taking the time to let it rest. Not watching TV or Facebooking but actually taking time to do nothing. Distraction is not a good thing, at least not at the rates we allow it in our lives.

Take some time to lie on the couch and stare at the ceiling or drive to work without the radio on. It will change you.

Acceptance Criteria

In software engineering we have a way of working that we refer to as "agile." It means that we behave in a way that makes it easier for us to adapt to change.

I often joke that I work as an agent of change so that I can make others change and not myself :)

There is an idea we work around that says that before we start any task, we must define upfront how we will know that a task is completed.

We call this the Acceptance Criteria.

Today, I applied this concept to a life situation and it helped me accept that what I thought was a case of friendship was really no more than a case of me being played.

As readers of this blog well know, I can be easily be convinced that 'gullible' has been removed from the Oxford English Dictionary. This often underwrites my tendency to believe people when they tell me something and that they are not lying to me. As a logician, I see the flaw in this statement immediately but apparently not in reality.

The acceptance criteria today involved checking what it means for someone to actually care for me. A friend for instance. A person who cares about how they make me feel and care that I am not made sad by their actions. A person who takes the time to understand where I am coming from. A person who gives me the benefit of the doubt. A person who would not act against me, no matter the situation.

Application of said criteria resulted in a fail.

I am a good friend. I am learning that I can not expect that from everyone.

Don't Overthink It Protocol

There is a Nietzsche quote that always pops in to my mind when I'm in the depths of introspection.

"And when you gaze long into an abyss the abyss also gazes into you."

This is the point where I instigate the Don't Overthink It Protocol (AKA: DEFCON 3), which consists of the following...

• Accept what you can not control;
• Distract yourself with activities;
• Read a LOT;
• Plan things to look forward to; and
• Forgive the person who put you here.

Saying this out loud always helps me. It isn't a silver bullet but it is an easing of the melancholy.