Someday Syndrome

Soaking in Hot Sea Water

Tomorrow Raúl and I are going to San Sebastian's thermal baths. You have absolutely no clue how much I'm looking forward to the visit.

This week I started taking Caprylic Acid pills. It's an anti-fungal. The pills accelerate the die-off of the Candida. Unfortunately die-off produces a lot of pain. Think of it. My body is now full of dying yeast. As it dies, it releases toxins. Toxins produce pain.

Coming home from work, I have to climb about 100 steps, a very steep hill and then the six flights of stairs. Yesterday I was okay on the 100 steps. The steep hill exhausted me and the six flights of stairs nearly made me weep.

The last time I went through this (nearly five years ago), I would feel better by having a nice hot bath. Since our bathroom is only four feet wide and we only have a shower, I can't do that in our Txikihome.

So several hours in thermal baths – yeah I need that right now.

Someday Lessons:

• The road to happiness can detour through pain sometimes. Stay the course.
• When going through a rough patch, find little things to keep your spirits up.

Breeding Familiarity

Yesterday I remembered that I live in a different country, speak a different language now, and have every intention of staying here a long time. I remembered that I'm living the life I want.

It made me quite giddy.

In the daily grind, it's easy to forget this joy. When I moved to San Sebastian, I worried about this blog. How was I going to keep it up when my life settled into normalcy, when life became routine?

But that's what most people live every day. Life isn't huge adventures, living out of a car or plunking yourself down in another country, another culture, without having to earn money. It's day to day details that dull joy and happiness.

So today, I want you to do something. I want you to appreciate your life. Even if you're not in a good place right now, find one thing that makes you happy and celebrate it. You don't need to shout it from the rooftops, but tell someone. Vocalize your happiness and make it real. Make it concrete.

Someday Lessons:

• Familiarity breeds not contempt but inattention. Stay aware of yourself.
• Familiarity also breeds comfort, often unhappy comfort. Don't let that be you.

Fishing the Text Sea

In Jasper Fforde's Thursday Next series, the third book is called the Well of Lost Plots. It's the place where writers go to when they are creating stories. These are all the unpublished books, all the fragments of ideas that authors have had. And if they are left unpublished too long they are broken up for parts and the leftover letters go into the Text Sea to be reused by someone else.

I love this concept.

As part of my writing routine I've started doing daily writing exercises. I don't do them every day, but I'm aiming for most days. On the FM Writers forums I'm given a writing prompt. It can be anything, from having to write about a character needing to get past a vicious dog, to someone having the ability to shift at will.

The interesting thing is that I'm never at a loss for ideas. Sometimes when I'm feeling lazy I don't respond to a particular prompt, but I know that if I made a bit more of an effort, I'd come up with something. The pieces are always short, under 500 words, but they are enough to give me an idea of a world, of a situation that I could explore.

Every day I fish the Text Sea. With patience I catch enough letters to create an idea. Each idea then goes into the Well of Lost Plots and stay there until I decide to explore them further, or until I no longer want them and they go back into the Sea, ready for the next fisher/writer to come along.

Someday Lessons:

• Your creativity is boundless. It's just a matter of finding the right metaphor to access it.
• If you want to pull yourself out of routine, practice creativity regularly.

Names Have Power

In 1985, Ursula K. LeGuin wrote a story called She Unnames Them. It's about Eve (and Adam) and the naming of things. It's one of my favourite short stories. When we name something we define it. We say what it is and what it isn't. We also define how we act and react around the thing we've named

Take today's theme. I never know what to say on Lazy Tuesday. I procrastinate about what I'm going to write. You'll notice that many times I've used the theme as an excuse not to write anything (here, here, here and here).

I had meant the theme to represent the procrastination part of this blog. It hasn't turned out that way though. The meaning of the name has mutated and has come to represent something else altogether. I won't change the name--I quite like it--but I will have to be more determined to write about procrastination and to not procrastinate about writing.

Someday Lessons:
Be very careful about word choice. It can really affect you attitude and actions.
Changing the name of something changes its meaning and changes your approach to it.

The Fog Begins to Clear

Last week I started an anti-yeast diet. Today I finally feel good. Last week I was cranky, irritable, judgmental, and hurt everywhere. Thinking was difficult and I felt there were wads of cotton between me and the world. Today my mind is clear and my body is (mostly) pain-free.

The sugar cravings drove me crazy. They still do, actually, but having gone through the worst of the detox symptoms, I'm not about to give in and have to start all over!

I'm through the worst but staying on the diet won't be easy. Temptations abound! Fortunately as I continue to feel better, the cravings will fade. They'll never go away, though. Over the years I've conditioned my body to like certain things, like bread and cheese and sugar. I'll always crave them and for the rest of my life I'll have to monitor and moderate their intake.

Someday Lessons:

• Gratification and happiness are two different things.
• Happiness is not automatic – it takes vigilance to maintain it.

Off The Road Again

I'm a bad man. I'm selling Fleur for parts today.

She's been a good car and I've had a lot of fun with her despite her age. We've been together for a year now and have traveled over most of the Pyrenees, the French and Spanish sides.

In cutting back on income and expenses, however, a car does not figure into the monthly budget. I don't need a car. It is convenient to have one, though. Now trips need to be carefully coordinated, by train, by bus, by going with others. Raul and I will lose some of our freedom without a car.

However, I have a goal. I want to write fiction. This means less time for earning money (in the short-term). To reach this goal, I must give up some things and the car is one of them.

Someday Lessons:

• When you personify things, getting rid of them is harder.
• Clear goals make hard decisions easier.

Surround Yourself With Happy People

We are defined by our friends. If our friends complain all the time, or judge people, or are just generally negative people, chances are you are too. You might want to be more positive, to be less judgmental, but if that's all you hear from others, it's difficult to do anything else yourself.

It could be as simple as moving your desk at work away from the coworker who never has anything nice to say. Or you might have to divorce yourself from a friend or two.

Before you do, talk to them. Explain what you feel when you are together. Ask them if they understand and if they would like help being more positive. Unfortunately, many negative people will see this type of conversation as an attack, so the divorce may be inevitable.

It's difficult to do this with family members. A literal divorce might be necessary, or a careful distancing from a negative sibling or parent. Don't, however, withdraw from your kids. Children usually need a hug right when they're being their most negative.

Someday Lessons:

• What do your friendships say about you? Are they positive or negative?
• Monkey see, monkey do. What do look at every day?

Do You Know If You're Happy?

When I was younger and more dramatic I used to wallow in unhappiness (Okay fine, sometimes I still do indulge in a good bout of self-pity, but I try to stop it as soon as I notice what I'm doing). Now when I realize that I'm starting to get unhappy I look for the cause then change things.

A lot of people, however, know they are unhappy and don't do a thing about it. It could be a case of self-worth; they don't believe they are worthy of being happy. It could be inertia; easier to stay comfortably unhappy then make an effort to change. Or it could be fear; it's less risky to stay where you are than to aim higher and maybe fall lower.

These things I understand. Insecurity, inertia and fear are active. They are the results of being aware of life, even if they are negative. What I don't get, however, is people who never look at their lives. They don't actually know if they are happy or not. They don't just live with blinders on, hiding other possibilities, they don't even have their eyes open! These people seem to be content to go through life as if they were on a really long and boring car ride. Nothing interesting is supposed to happen and they hit the major milestones in life in the same way they'd stop off at service stations along the highway.

With this type of life, all I think is: “How sad.”

Someday Lessons:

• Live positively or live negatively, but be aware of your choices.
• You have one life – what are you doing with it?

What Aren't You Doing To Be Happy?

Yesterday my sister added a comment, talking about what she wanted to be happier. She also mentioned what she was doing about each thing to improve the situation.

I don't want my body to hurt, so I've changed my diet. I want to earn a living from writing fiction. For that I'm spending several hours a day writing, editing, learning techniques, and critiquing other people's work. Plus I want to be published, but I'm not really doing much about it.

Yes, I submitted my novel to an agent, but I have several short stories in my computer that I don't send out to magazines or contests. I say that I'm a writer and yet I don't actively pursue becoming a published writer.

Why not? Fear. Simply fear.

Most people have a fear of rejection. If we put ourselves out there, others will say no to us, so it's better to not do anything.

Having realized this about myself however, I can push myself past the fear and do what I need to.

Someday Lessons:

• To succeed ambition needs to be stronger than fear.
• We all want things but how many of us actively pursue them?

You're Not As Happy As You Could Be

I don't mean superficially happy, like “I'd be happier if Bones came back on the air soon,” or “I'd be happier if I got the mirror in the bedroom hung.” I mean soul-deep happiness. I mean the happiness that Gretchen Rubin talks about in The Happiness Project.

Right now I've never been happier in my entire life, and yet I'm not has happy as I want to be.

I would be happier if I were published. I would be happier if I didn't have to worry about my diet and resulting pain when I ignore it. I would be happier if I could support myself purely from writing fiction.

Those are concrete things. They are things I can works towards. Do you know what would make you happier? Most people don't. Most people go through life comfortably unhappy or merely content. Most people think that true happiness is beyond them, that it's for idealists who don't live in the real world.

Are you one of those people?

Someday Lessons:

• What would make you truly happy? Do you know?
• Don't live a comfortable life. Strive for a happy one.