[Heidi]

It’s been a year since I was in the gym regularly or doing any physical training in any recognizable fashion. Over the last couple years, I’ve focused on Druidics, deepening my abilities and establishing a bedrock. This is good. 

But it’s time to come out of the cave and stand in the sun, even if it’s the thin light of winter. 2022 begins the Paladin Build, and I’m not going to sugar-coat it: I’m intimidated. I have no idea what I will be able to achieve. I have lots (lots) of self doubt on this front.

If I learned anything in the Deep Dark Druid forest, it’s that we can only solve a problem we are willing to have. Simply put, I can’t scale an obstacle that I’m unwilling to face.

Join me as I muster my willingness to walk back into the gym and see what I can do, and how often I can do something, anything once I am there. In this, I’m turning to my long-ago skill tree to help guide me through. There is one goal this round: Get in the gym, whenever I can, without judgement. If the core of druidics is “Be here now,” then the core of this challenge is “do something now.” I always know what to do once I’m there.

 

Any of these:

Strength: Lifting heavy things

Intelligence is a weapon like no other: Reading, writing, classes

Wisdom to know how and when and where to fight

Constitution: Sleep, eat, water, Wellness Wednesday (acupuncture/massage, milk & eggs)

Dexterity: Body-weight training (pushups, core work, yoga)

Endurance: Just keep moving (swim, stationary bike)

Charisma: Sauna, sleep

 

[NeuroWitch]

Loving the Matrix gifs! My boyfriend and I just saw that movie today!

[Scaly Freak]

1 hour ago, Heidi said:

Intelligence is a weapon like no other: Reading, writing, classes

 

 

[darkfoxx]

 

I need to watch that movie like 9 more times before I can fathom all the Easter eggs, let alone play super close attention to any new information. 

[Tanktimus the Encourager]

Hey there paladin. 

[Heidi]

8 hours ago, NeuroWitch said:

Loving the Matrix gifs! My boyfriend and I just saw that movie today!

WooHoo, and High five! 

What did you think of it?

 

7 hours ago, Scaly Freak said:

 

You know me so well. ❤️ 

 

3 hours ago, darkfoxx said:

 

I need to watch that movie like 9 more times before I can fathom all the Easter eggs, let alone play super close attention to any new information. 

I don’t watch many movies more than once, but this has already had a second viewing. I saw it in the cinema and nearly pulled something because I wanted to take notes so badly. After a bit, I realized it was going to be a whole notebook, probably turn into a collected set of themed essays, and I sat back and enjoyed the show. Wow, What a ride. 

 

1 hour ago, Tanktimus the Encourager said:

Hey there paladin. 

Hey there, fellow holy warrior. Always good to have you in my corner, personally and because CureLightWounds™ comes in super handy!  

[Heidi]

Week Zero Day One:

Sunday, December 26

Strength: I was/am still recovering from a massive lifting session that went on the day before as Jenna and I moved furniture, constructed furniture, and moved furniture again. I did actually pick up a 4-foot table and move it from one place in the apartment to another, so I suppose technically that counts.

Intelligence: Reading another 100 pages (We Need to Talk About Kevin), writing an analysis of Matrix Resurrections’ nod to Plato, especially his notion of the duality of the soul, but also his idea of Form and control, and (as always) the allegory of The Cave. No classes, but I wrote up and posted this challenge, which is a similar mental space.

Wisdom: Inspiration was pretty strong yesterday, so I went with it, but it was difficult to shut off, and I found myself up much later than I had intended. This is the illustrated textbook definition of Unwise, since it leaves me leaves a hit to my wisdom for the following 24 hours (or more).

Constitution: Sleep was later than it should have been and for a second night in a row I woke up every two hours. I’m hoping that some regular activity in the other areas will help address this. I ate a breakfast of cereal and a lunch of grilled salmon and two eggs. There was milk, but not much in the way of water, and with the weather being weird I can definitely feel the need to hydrate.

Dexterity: nothing

Endurance: Nothing

Charisma: No Sauna, some sleep

 

For those of you hawk-eyed readers who noticed that sleep is on this list twice, it’s not an error. The necessity of sleep is so deep that I could list it in Wisdom as well, and considered it.

[Tanktimus the Encourager]

I also woke up every two hours last night. I do not reccomend it.

[Scaly Freak]

Furniture deadlifting absolutely counts. Welcome to the Warriors  

[Heidi]

2 hours ago, Scaly Freak said:

Furniture deadlifting absolutely counts. Welcome to the Warriors  

Hooray! 

Does this mean I get a spear and magic corset??

 

3 hours ago, Tanktimus the Encourager said:

I also woke up every two hours last night. I do not reccomend it.

Agreed! One star. 

 

And did I say I take a hit to my Wisdom score? Holy moly, let’s not sell this short. Today I have taken a hit to everything so far, but especially Intelligence (and probably charisma, because I’m feeling low-key surly to boot).

[Scaly Freak]

1 hour ago, Heidi said:

Hooray! 

Does this mean I get a spear and magic corset??

 

 

We're giving out swords to newcomers, to start with. The spear, and later on the double axe, are awarded as you gain Warrior levels.

[Heidi]

23 hours ago, Scaly Freak said:

 

We're giving out swords to newcomers, to start with. The spear, and later on the double axe, are awarded as you gain Warrior levels.

I have a sword. Two actually: one is a hand-and-a-half bastard sword and the other is a shiny shiny gladius. 🙂

[NeuroWitch]

9 hours ago, Heidi said:

WooHoo, and High five! 

What did you think of it?

Well, to be honest, I really liked the first half hour. I got super excited when we first see Neo with the computers because I thought it was going to go in a totally different direction. There were a few things I thought they did really well, but overall I felt like the storytelling was super weak and disjointed.

[Heidi]

1 minute ago, NeuroWitch said:

Well, to be honest, I really liked the first half hour. I got super excited when we first see Neo with the computers because I thought it was going to go in a totally different direction. There were a few things I thought they did really well, but overall I felt like the storytelling was super weak and disjointed.

Wow, I think I totally see what you had in mind.

Tell me you're going to write that story, because I definitely want to read it!

[Heidi]

Yesterday was messed up from lack of sleep, which should have led to sleep but curiously did not. A third night in a row of every two hours, with uneasiness, and I'm freaking wiped out.

 

I feel crummy enough that I'm taking it seriously beyond just lack of sleep and kind of treating myself as though I have the beginnings of the flu.

 

No sauna or gym, because germs, but a hot shower and some chicken noodle soup and aspirin and a nap.

[Heidi]

The numbers are out of sight, and not in a good way.

 

I may have picked the absolute wrong challenge to focus on going to the gym.

 

Whatever. I still feel low-key crummy. 

Tylenol, tea, and an episode of The Landscapers.

[Heidi]

In the last days of December I find myself looking at the new calendar as a new leaf, as so many of us do, wondering what I can make of the coming 365 days, and what the world will make of my plans along the way. In this, January has a feeling of beginning, of commencement, and it's no accident that I find myself drawn to graduation speeches as I walk the weird week between Christmas Day and New Year's Eve.

 

"Be here now" is the oft-cited edict of Druids of all stripes: Morpheus, Yoda, Ghandi, Jimi Hendrix.

But, as my writing student put it in her work yesterday, Mindfulness is hard. 

 

I'm reminded of another quote, a bit in a movie that I love, Playing By Heart. Jolie's character is talking about love, and she says that she has this friend, a musician, who says that "talking about love is like dancing about architecture," a spin on a quote from possibly Frank Zappa or perhaps Declan Patrick Aloysius MacManus (Elvis Costello to you and me) despite his often denying it, or maybe Martin Mull. But Jolie's character (Joan in the film) goes just a step further, and this is what makes it all more than merely witty for me. She says "Talking about love might be like dancing about architecture, but that's not going to stop me from trying."

 

Be here now.

Mindfulness is hard.

But that's not going to stop me from trying.

 

"It is unimaginably hard to do this, to stay conscious and alive in the adult world day in and day out. Which means yet another grand cliché turns out to be true: your education really is the job of a lifetime. And it commences: now.

 

I wish you way more than luck."

This is Water, David Foster Wallace

 

[Tanktimus the Encourager]

16 minutes ago, Heidi said:

Be here now.

Mindfulness is hard.

But that's not going to stop me from trying.

In meditation, the goal is not to never be distracted, but to deal appropriately with distractions. In fact, I've read somewhere redirecting the mind from a distracting thought is meditation.

In the same way, mindfulness is not being focused on the here and now, but the discipline of what you with the distractions.

 

It's ok if it's hard, acknowledging the existence of the difficulty and facing it is what's important. How well it's dealt with will take care of itself.

[Heidi]

1 hour ago, Tanktimus the Encourager said:

acknowledging the existence of the difficulty and facing it is what's important.

Absolutely.

Speaking of facing up to what is right in front of me, I cancelled today's massage because the likelihood is that no matter why I haven't been sleeping well all week, the fact is that reduced sleep affects my immune system. Going out is dicey; going out compromised is dumb. Awareness allows me to choose my battles, and to understand that I *might* be contagious, something I do not want to bring to my massage therapist who is pregnant (and unvaccinated). 

 

Being willing to allow others freedom of choice means being willing to be inconvenienced by their choices, even (especially?) when I don't agree. 

Once I look at it this way, there really isn't a choice, so much as an index of willingness and resulting action (or, in this case, inaction).

[Heidi]

I managed to read another scant 50 pages of Kevin, and had some great phone conversation today. I am more present, but still there is something going on, and I'm very glad I cancelled massage.

 

The sourdough sponge is perking along. The starter is still new, so it's not as viably perky as it will be, and the sponge will need a hearty amount of time on its shelf before becoming dough.

 

Last week I started watching Big Little Lies, and it's very good. I might catch an episode tonight before bed, or I might just take an extra long hot bath and call it a day.

[Heidi]

I started an episode of Big Little Lies, and it was just too heavy. After a conversation with @Scaly Freak, I remembered that I haven't seen any of season two of The Librarians, and that sounds just right for my mood and attention span.

 

The sourdough is doing its first rise, covered and tucked away in a space I made on a shelf especially for this purpose. Making bread is soulful for me, and sourdough especially is so.  Perhaps if I can't go to the gym or to massage, I can at least make bread. (Heidi: The Rising springs to mind.)

 

After tucking in the bread I was searching my Sent folder for information from a conference submission and found a reply from weeks ago that had somehow got routed to spam. I looks like I'll be presenting at the Southeast Philosophy of Education Society conference in Decatur in February. I'll be talking about Education, Public Policy, and Democracy. I booked my room at the hotel and tried to book a train, but the Amtrak app keeps crashing, so I'm leaving that for a different day. I'm tired and it's time to rest while the bread does its thing.

[Scaly Freak]

1 minute ago, Heidi said:

After tucking in the bread I was searching my Sent folder for information from a conference submission and found a reply from weeks ago that had somehow got routed to spam. I looks like I'll be presenting at the Southeast Philosophy of Education Society conference in Decatur in February. I'll be talking about Education, Public Policy, and Democracy. 

 

About how the first of those three is critical for sustaining the third one?

[Heidi]

5 minutes ago, Scaly Freak said:

 

About how the first of those three is critical for sustaining the third one?

Investigating how the (as you noted, essential) role of education in democracy has become subverted in the last 60+ years as schools have become battlegrounds of public policy wars that have little to do with educational goals;  how democracy is suffering as a result; and what we can do about it.

[Scaly Freak]

Just now, Heidi said:

Investigating how the (as you noted, essential) role of education in democracy has become subverted in the last 60+ years as schools have become battlegrounds of public policy wars that have little to do with educational goals;  how democracy is suffering as a result; and what we can do about it.

 

Must. Put. Soapbox. Away.

 

It's a struggle.  

[Heidi]

7 minutes ago, Scaly Freak said:

 

Must. Put. Soapbox. Away.

 

It's a struggle.  

If you lose the struggle, you can come join me on the Philosophers Bench.

 

I keep trying to tell the KidsTheseDays™️ that Dark Academia is real, but they think it's fashion and okay, sure, keep playing with it.