End of Self Observing Universe
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Friday, June 1, 2018
Why Moab should accept its vandwelling population
Many people are leaving their houses and apartments in favor of life on the road, building homes inside of vehicles like vans, buses, campers, minivans, and RVs. You're likely to see all kinds of mobile dwellings parked outside the information center, around Swanny Park, and at the library.
Who are these crazy people? What would motivate a person to live in such a tiny space, often forgoing a shower, refrigerator, and toilet? There are as many reasons to live in a van as there are vandwellers, but I'll point out some common themes and explain why I choose to live in my vehicle.
Some people feel miserable being stuck in one location, preferring to travel continually. Some do it because it's trendy and they have the money to spend on a fancy or classic rig. Other people have lost their home to a financial crisis and a van is better than sleeping on the street, though it's still not what they'd prefer. Others are pursuing a passion that requires a lot of moving around. Some do it because it's cheap. One thing we all have in common is that for some reason or another we feel it's the best available option for our lives.
Personally, I'm drawn to the combination of frugality and mobility. I'm content with minimal possessions and enjoy sleeping outdoors. Since I'm working toward making a living as a writer, having free time to travel and reflect is more valuable to me than constantly earning money to pay hundreds of dollars for a living situation I don't want or need. Also, since I move around the West seasonally, a home on wheels is a foundation no matter where I go.
In recent years vandwelling has grown from a "down by the river" joke into a glamorous millenial dream. #Vanlife is an instagram sensation: images of $50,000 Sprinter vans decked out with the slickest gear, beautiful young white heterosexual digital-nomad couples lounging half-nakedly in front of stunning ocean sunsets. "Wow, now that's living!", exclaim the adoring masses. It seems romantic, but most vandwellers pee into jugs, shower infrequently, and experience their fair share of frustration and anxiety. Instagram stars usually spend more time curating their image than enjoying nature. There is magic on the road, and it's worth trying if you're interested, but anyone expecting a picture perfect experience might be disappointed by the reality.
The number of vandwellers in the real-life and digital gathering places I participate in is 20 times greater now than it was three years ago. It has become a movement which cannot be stopped.
Moab has long attracted the sort of adventurous folks who embrace the dirtbag lifestyle, so vandwelling is nothing new here, but there's another local factor increasing its prevalence: affordable long-term rentals in town are scarce, and at the same time the booming tourist crowd demands more low-wage workers. Where else are they supposed to live?
It's illegal to camp in a van on city streets or residential property. The only reason I've heard for this prohibition is sanitation, but considering that so many new hotel rooms are being added in spite of an already over-capacity wastewater treatment plant, I find it hard to believe that sanitation is of high concern; and we're not that disgusting in the first place.
Officially allowing vehicle/RV camping could alleviate some of the competition for affordable rentals. RV parks are available but not ideal for most vandwellers. Symbiotic relationships could be formed with homeowners, exchanging the stability of a legitimate parking spot for extra driveway security or rent money. The reality is that people are doing it anyway, and they're needlessly burdened with a constant fear of eviction.
If the current housing trend continues, people will have to commute daily from the closest towns, increasing traffic and pollution. No offense to those other towns, but most people choose to work in Moab because they want to live in Moab. Should that be a privilege only afforded to homeowners?
Vandwelling certainly isn't the solution to this problem, as most people getting squeezed out of their homes don't want to live in a van and shouldn't have to. But it's a possible partial solution that shouldn't be ignored.
I'm writing this column from Portland, OR, where I'm building a shuttle bus into a home that will comfortably meet my needs and leave me with more energy to pour into my writing. I miss Moab greatly and I'm planning to return as soon as possible to keep building my connections with the community. I believe I have something valuable to offer, yet there's a nagging worry every time I think about returning: "how am I going to find a secure place to park this thing?". If the lifestyle were to be embraced rather than prohibited, vandwellers could provide some relief for Moab's growing pains.
(This is the pre-publication version of my piece for the Moab Sun news, published May 31, 2018)
Friday, November 17, 2017
Healing from pain: the mind-body connection
I sit down under the rock arch at the end of my hike and remove my shoes, placing them near my groin, under my ankles as padding while I sit on the downward sloping slickrock. The lowering sun shines on me and counteracts the cool air. Starting a 31 minute timer, adjusting my seat, I do my best to clear my head and settle in to my meditation practice.
I begin by focusing all attention on my breath, trying my best to notice any encroaching thoughts and drop them. It has been a busy-minded day and this effort is not very successful. I move on to scanning my body (Vipassana), beginning at the top of my head, bringing my awareness to any sensations that are present; spreading this awareness down the sides and back of my scalp, down my forehead, the edge of my hairline, through my eyes and nose and mouth and cheeks and jaw and chin and down my neck.
The technique says not to react to any sensations, but rather to accept them impartially, equanimously. My only job is to sit still and scan my awareness through all parts of my body and notice what I find. But today I simply cannot resist the urge to squirm when I experience the constricting tension in my neck, shoulders, and upper torso. It is easier for me to explore the tightness by moving, playing, stretching, somehow addressing the problem rather than sitting still and experiencing it. I want to stretch it out until it's gone, once and for all.
I know that this is counterproductive to the method I am using. There is a time and place for that kind of exploration in yoga and dance but it doesn't mesh well with Vipassana. My most helpful meditation sessions are the ones where I truly stop caring about whether my sensations are pleasant or not, and allow them to arise as they are. It is in these times I see myself for how I am, when I connect different aspects of my experience and accept my current state.
After a couple minutes of side bends, neck circles, heart openers, I try to remember where I left off and continue my scan down my body. Down the front and back hemispheres of my torso and through my pelvis. My legs are hard to sense in detail. There is a contraction of hips and thighs I believe I need to maintain in order to remain sitting upright; it feels as though I will fall backward if I release it, but this is not the case if I can also release the tension in my low back to allow my spine to float to vertical. My calves threaten to cramp into charlie horse if I notice and release them fully, so I move through that area quickly to avoid the pain.
My upper torso is still crying out to me and my attention jumps back up there. I stretch my arms out to my side as wide as they will go, while also trying to release my shoulders downward and shine my chest forward, like Christ on the cross. As I do this, pain and tingling shoots down my left bicep area from shoulder to elbow. The muscles, ligaments, fascia, something in this area is so accustomed to being drawn in to protect my heart that it literally doesn't know how to relax for a second. The tension tugs at my attached body parts, I feel it in my neck, my shoulderblade, my chest.
I try to return my attention to my feet, to where I'd stopped the methodical scan of my body, but ultimately I surrender to the screaming tension surrounding my heart. It is nothing new for me. It has been there for years, decades, but damn I am getting so tired of being captive to this restriction. I try to remain impartial to the pain as I attempt to release as much as I can. Maybe the pain isn't there to protect me, maybe I'm not at risk of self injury if I allow it to become excruciating, maybe I have to pass through that to let myself release.
Though I surrender to the agony I can not release.
Suddenly, the experience becomes emotional. "Why am I still so trapped by this? Why do I carry this pain? What have I done to deserve it? When will I ever be free from this? How can I get past it?" I am nearly in tears and I feel a deep sadness for myself, for the child who still lives in me who has known this pain for so long. I know that not everyone carries this burden. I see the freedom in the posture of some of the more well-adjusted souls around me. They do not have the weight of the world on their backs. Their hearts are not so fragile as to need protection from their shoulders. Their chests are proud in full acceptance of their place in the world, their value and goodness. They are strong in themselves and they have something to offer. Why can't I be like that too?
My timer ends, and I quietly put my shoes on and begin to walk the sandy trails and paint-marked slickrock back to my van. I've left behind some of my anxiety and restlessness at the arch but take with me a new sadness and compassion for myself.
I understand some of why I carry this pain. Multiple people who deal with body therapy have noticed the same constriction in my ribcage in the heart area and pointed it out to me. I've worked with it over the years, I've reflected on why it's there and what it means for me.
A major part of it is my birth with a congenital heart defect, and the corresponding open heart surgery at age 15. My chest cavity was opened — of course this affected my body and as I healed I could never return to exactly the way I was before. I had a sense of needing to protect my wound which became ingrained in my consciousness and in my body's patterns of holding. To this day I am sensitive to being contacted where my scar is, and if it is tapped or impacted with any force (even by myself) I feel an immediate fear and pain. My mind may have been anesthetized to oblivion while the buzzsaw bisected my sternum and while my ribs were pried apart, but I wonder how much of that experience my body still remembers vividly.
But it's more than the physical trauma of my heart organ. It's an emotional thing; it's my question of self worth, my wavering sense of deservingness. It's the first two decades of my life that I spent listening to people who told me that I was inherently sinful, that I was wicked and needed saving, that all humans were this way. That my only hope of worthiness was through the replacement of my own identity with that of Jesus Christ. That nothing I could do on my own would ever be good enough without this phantom figment of a God doing it through me. It's been almost a decade since I rejected this soul crushing, abusive philosophy, but still the effects of it hide themselves away deep within me.
It's more than that, too. Because of certain dynamics in the ways I was raised, I learned to view myself and my achievements through the lens of someone else's opinions, I learned to make someone else happy regardless of how it affects my own health, goals, and individuality. I grew up thinking I must learn to match a certain worldview and style of interaction which was contrary to my own nature. I was shown that I should despise, or at least ignore, my own body and treat physical contact and sexuality with disdain. I have far more memories of intimate embraces shared with my pillow than anyone in my family. I was terrified of being seen for who I really was, though I also craved that deeply.
I'm one of the lucky ones. My parents had me on purpose and I grew up relatively secure. No one ever bullied me at school. I was never molested. I had the privilege of being male, white, financially secure, and healthy other than my heart problem. I've never really been discriminated against because of any demographic which I have not chosen. My parents taught me a lot of functional and healthy habits. I've had a good education, I have a useful degree. I don't live in fear.
Since entering adulthood I've been able to dissect a lot of the things in my past that have hurt me and I've pushed hard in the direction of healing, growth, peace, self acceptance, and understanding. I've been privileged to encounter some amazing life experiences that many people will never have the chance to know. I have even found meaning in my trauma. I've turned my ongoing heart complications into a motivation and a learning experience, I've turned my distasteful experience with religion into a way to help and love other people who have been through the same thing.
And yet, I can tell you that life feels shitty sometimes. This emotional and physical pain surrounding my heart is very tangible. It still affects me. Everyone goes through something like this whether they know it or not; for many people the pain makes their life pure misery. Many people don't know where it's coming from. Many people think it's an inevitable part of life and they conclude that death would be better. When pain is someone's whole reality I can't say they're wrong.
But I believe healing is possible for myself. I know that trauma can be worked through, I have made progress in the past, and I will continue to grow in the future. My experience under the arch that day broke me down into sadness but it also lit a fire in my heart to take better care of myself.
As I walked down to my van and drove back to town I knew that I could not hide from my pain any longer, I could not continue to numb it or cover it up.
The first step of healing from trauma is simply to know that it exists. I realized this day that I need to validate the impact of my trauma and not dismiss it. I must bring it into the light and expose it publicly.
The second step is to begin making visits into the experience of that trauma from a place of security where the pain will not be too overwhelming; slowly, carefully, briefly at first. To climb down into that murky well and scoop some of the mud from the bottom while not going so deep that you get stuck.
I decided that the best way for me to do this would be to focus intensively on yoga for a time, while also improving my diet and sleep habits. Yoga takes my body to places that I would not otherwise know. It breaks up the stagnation. It provides a safe place to test my pain, to calmly explore the topography of my limitations and break new ground as I'm ready, intentionally and in a safe place. It lets me practice strong, functional new patterns of openness rather than settling into the habit of recoiling from what is uncomfortable.
I used some of my tip money to buy a month-long unlimited yoga pass and started going to classes every day. It's been 11 days. Every single class has had at least a few poses or themes that relate to the opening of my wounds and I've been grateful for the chance to embrace that painful place. I can feel changes starting to unwind inside me already, more sensitivity in the painful area, more discrete control of movable parts, greater range of motion. More ability to let go of the tension while also allowing strength to flow through. More ability to expand my chest and fill it with breath. Less need to draw my shoulders forward and hunch my neck before I do anything else.
And as tends to be the case, emotional healing happens simultaneously with physical healing. I'm already feeling more confident and more solid as a person. I feel like my days are more full, like I'm doing better at spending my time on fulfilling things and not getting stuck in self-doubt and misery. I've had more energy for helping people and for community projects I care about. I feel less intimidated by the idea of other people seeing my good and attractive qualities for what they are. I've actually looked at my reflection and caught myself unironically thinking "damn I am sexy today". I'm laughing and smiling more and overall feeling better.
The third step of healing from trauma is to get so familiar with that trauma that it loses its power. There's a desensitization, an extinction of the trigger that turns the pain into suffering. It becomes a place you can go like any other place, nothing special, nothing to fear. It's an integration into your whole self of that hurt which you have kept isolated. You accept it as part of your shape and the pain fades away. I'm working toward this step now. There are places inside me that I am restricted from experiencing without pain and suffering, but I'm teasing them out. I may be here for a long time.
The fourth step is to embrace the ways that this trauma has made you unique. What did the pain and the healing process teach you? Can you see others going through the same thing, can you help them along? What power does this empathy give you? Maybe someday, my recovery from self-doubt and the pain that came from struggling to embrace my own goodness will actually become my strength, like a broken bone that heals to become stronger than it was before. Maybe someday I'll know exactly what it is I have to offer and exactly how I can implement that. Maybe someday I'll know how to teach others to become strong in their own worth.
In one aspect or another, I am in all stages of healing at all times. As Moshe Feldenkrais said, "our goal is to make the impossible possible, the possible easy, and the easy elegant." Different hurts are in different stages along that process. Eventually we can learn to do impossible things elegantly. Our greatest weaknesses can become our greatest strengths.
Today I know that I am alive. I am learning to love the whole process of growth including the pain and confusion along with the triumphs. Life changes. That's fascinating. We get to watch it, to experience it. We just need to be open to experimentation, willing to learn, patient with what's hard, and hold on to the truths we have struggled so hard to find.
Saturday, November 11, 2017
deconverter.com: stories of changing beliefs
deconverter.com is a platform for people to share stories about leaving behind their previous belief systems. The focus is on ex-Christians who have adopted a relatively atheistic worldview like myself, since that is what I know best, but I accept stories from any religion of origin and any resulting belief system.
My goal with this is threefold:
1) To encourage people who have left their faith to go through the therapeutic process of writing the story down and sharing it publicly,
2) To help those who have deconverted to know that they are not alone and provide them with community resources and connections to other ex-believers,
3) To create a collection of stories for those who are interested in the experiences of former believers, the process of deconverting, or who may be questioning their own faith and want to know if other people have asked the same questions and where it led them.
I want people to know that change is possible, and though it might be scary and traumatic at first, it can be worked through and the results can be wonderful.
Those are the altruistic reasons I wanted to create this site. Selfishly, I figure that this is a topic that has quite a large base of people who are personally involved, and as society becomes less religious that group will only be growing, so there's potential for the project to receive sustained interest and growth and exposure. Since I don't have to write the content myself, but rather curate the space and collect stories, it's not as labor-intensive on my part, which should also contribute to the sustainability of the project.
Head on over to read some stories, or if this is a process that you have been through yourself, I would love it if you wrote an essay about your experience and submitted it for publication -- just check out the contact page for instructions. :) Thank you!
Tuesday, August 29, 2017
Cause and effects
Sometimes a cause has multiple effects which are not obviously related to each other, yet one effect can be used to predict another.
For example, in town I tell my friends "I am going camping at the usual place, you are welcome to join me tonight." They say "OK, we're not sure but maybe we will see you there later."
So I drive to my campsite, I am relaxing, thinking about life and processing whatever comes up. Hours go by, the sun sets and I think: I could build a fire, that might be nice, but hmmm it sounds like a lot of work.
Another thought comes to mind: if I build a fire, my friends will come. If I don't, they won't.
Seems irrational. But, if I find the energy to build a fire, it might indicate a mental and emotional state of positive willingness to make things nice. If I was in that state when I invited my friends, then they probably picked up on that, and would likely be more attracted by my offer to hang out in the wilderness. Alternatively, if I've not found enough enthusiasm to build myself a fire, then maybe I was also in a low-energy state when I invited my friends, and they'll be thinking "an evening with that guy? Probably not tonight."
So it is not that my fire is a magic summoner. There's no way for them to know whether I have built a fire or not. It's just that the two decisions depend on the same variable to some extent, almost as though they were decided in the same moment, long before sundown.
I didn't build the fire. My friends didn't come.
Of course, this is a simplification, and there are other variables at play. It's possible that I had positive energy when I invited them, but in the following hours I became tired. Also, my friends' plans were influenced by personal circumstances unrelated to my invitation.
When one cause has multiple effects, the effects are related in a way that might not be obvious at first. If you can learn to see these connections in other people's lives you could seem to have psychic powers or great insight. And if you can learn to see them in your own life, you could seem to make great leaps of personal progress as you simultaneously solve multiple problems by addressing one root issue.
What if I'd meditated that morning, and it improved my mood for the day? My invitation might have been more joyous and sincere. Maybe I would have been more intentional about planning to make a fire and my friends would have felt more drawn to join me.
Wednesday, August 23, 2017
Good and evil, eternity and NOW
Are people good or evil?
No!
We associate good and evil with certain qualities we have assigned to other words. Generosity; kindness; provision; pleasure; safety; health; growth; strength. Destruction; violence; negation; death; neglect; pain; suffering; terror. All of these things are contained in the natural world, simultaneously and overlapping, without distinction.
Some animals survive in good health and abundance while others starve. Some animals eat, others are eaten. There are no rules. Parasites drain life from their hosts and this is OK. Dead bodies nourish the living. Some species can only come to life after a devastating fire, or they lay their eggs inside another animal and poison that animal to death so their young may feed. Mass extinctions happen. Some animals kill their mates immediately after mating. Animals rape and fight and kill. And yet they are innocent, all of it is natural.
Nothing lasts, even the rocks crumble and turn into dust. Rivers dry out, continents are submerged, frozen, desertified. A water molecule can flow beautifully from a rain shower to a creek and a waterfall and a river and an ocean, or it can be frozen in a polar ice cap for 500,000 years. Mountaintops are eventually subducted and melted into magma once more.
Stars are born and they die. They go supernova, collapsing into neutron stars and black holes. They destroy their planets. They smash into each other, they feed off each other like parasites. Entire galaxies collide in chaos. In the end of time all will be dark.
Is all of this good, or is it evil? What an impossible question. The universe is neither tragic nor magical, and it's both. It works itself out as it can, as it must, as it will be.
And people are the same. Nothing anyone does is really surprising. It is a reaction of what they are, to what they are around. Some people demonstrate behavior that we associate with good, others with evil, but everyone is a wide enough spectrum to contain some of both. Some people think only of themselves and are rewarded with health and money. Others care immensely for others and they die in a damn fire. Some are born to loving parents, others to neglectful and fearful ones; some know only abundance, some starve to death as children. And some come to see life as good while others see it as evil. Each of us is a small piece of the mosaic, and each of us is a mosaic of our own.
What does any of this mean? Who knows. But it seems wiser to acknowledge and accept the full contradictory complexity of our situation, rather than cling desperately to one selective interpretation or another. We can comfortably blind ourselves to the parts we don't like but it only leads to pain and confusion when our illusions are shattered. The only guarantee is change and impermanence, uncertainty and lack of control. The way to find true peace as a part of this system is to develop a healthy, practical, accepting relationship with the transient nature itself of life and the universe. To give up on illusions of control and importance, superiority and morality, eternal life and knowledge beyond human limitations. To instead experience the eternity that is contained in each passing moment.
THIS IS IT. Life is now! This moment is what you have. Can you accept it? Can you appreciate the fact that you are sitting here aware of yourself right now? You, made out of all the same kinds of things as everything else in the universe. Do you know that someday THIS MOMENT that you are in will be your last? When you are in that last moment, will you think back to this moment? To yesterday, tomorrow? What will you wish that you could tell yourself now? If your deathbed self could go back to who you are right now, what would you do? How would you cherish the fact that this is not your last day and not your last breath? Would you go outside and look at the sky and breathe deeply and be still? Would you hug someone and say that you love them? Would you value your curiosity and explore everything you ever wished you could? Would you forgive, love, encourage? Would you laugh outrageously?
Think about it! Your life is nothing but a collection of NOW moments. If you never learn to embrace the craziness of NOW, how will the overall picture of your life ever add up to something you want to experience? The past is worth remembering, and the future is worth preparing for, but these cannot replace the importance of what is happening NOW. Sit with now. Accept now. Enjoy now. Value now. Everything else in life is secondary.
Friday, May 5, 2017
Appetite vs. hunger
I enjoy experiencing extremes so that I better understand the spectrum of what's possible and what my options are. For example, one time I hiked alone for 6 weeks and I realized how much I needed human interaction. As an introvert, it was the first time I ever felt desperate to talk to someone. Going to that opposite extreme allowed me see myself from another angle, and appreciate friendship more.
More recently I've been playing with extremes of food access. Most of my life I've had enough money to buy whatever food I want, whenever I want, with full ability to cook it and keep it fresh. When I was in Moab I chose not to have much money, and food acquisition was less certain. I got food from the food bank, fruit trees, or looked for great deals at the store.
To be clear, I've gone nowhere near the true extreme of food depravation. I've never been at risk of starvation, never felt forced to dumpster dive or go hungry for days at a time. Still, the lifestyle change was enough to shift my attitude: eating went from being a fun thing that I would do when I was bored, to something that I did out of necessity. My food reserves were now a resource that I needed to manage carefully.
There were weeks when I mostly ate rice, potatoes, and onions. I ate a reasonable amount to fuel myself for the day, but I didn't usually sit around and pack my stomach full of junk just for fun. I couldn't afford the kinds of food I typically overeat (buffets, pizza, ice cream), so maybe a bag of chips was my occasional treat. The exception to this was when I got a haul from the food bank. I couldn't resist indulging in the sudden excess.
Now that I'm back in Portland, surrounded by relatively cheap, delicious food, and since my dad gave me some money so I can afford more comforts while I'm undergoing treatment, it's been very interesting to notice how my approach to food changes. I go grocery shopping and I buy lots of produce so I can make stir-fries and other nutritious meals -- which is an amazing privilege. Then, even with my fridge full of these healthy goodies, I go out to eat. I'm getting pizza, burritos, spending as much money on one meal as I could spend on 3 days worth of food if I were careful. "Why not?", says my stomach. I can afford it today, it's easy, it's tasty, it's fun, it's variety.
Appetite is tied to mental and emotional states, and it's actually a very different sensation than hunger. This is a well known phenomenon but I hadn't fully understood it on a personal level. In my extreme-frugality months I generally waited until I was truly hungry to eat a meal, so my stomach shrank and I didn't need as much food to be satisfied. Hunger was a common experience and it didn't have a negative association. Now, I feel the effects of appetite again, and I notice how it's a different kind of craving. When I'm lounging around in the evening and I'm stoned and I already had dinner and I still crave a pizza, I know that's my appetite talking... I'm looking for food excitement. If I choose to eat, I'm packing more food into a full stomach. I'm not eating to relieve the ache of an empty stomach.
Two days ago was a food-craving day. I wanted to eat a lot and not care about money. First I went to an Asian buffet around lunchtime and ate as much as I could. By evening I was still completely full, but I went and got two huge slices of pizza and a beer. On the way home I got a pint of Ben & Jerry's and ate that too. I recognized what I was doing and decided to just go crazy that day and enjoy it. I wanted to experience the excess in order to get it out of my system. So I overate for fun and not because I was hungry. I notice the difference now.
Though I enjoyed gorging myself that day, I knew I'd be making a change the day after. Being overly full just doesn't feel as satisfying to me anymore. It's kind of fun, but I can't ignore how irrational it is, and how it makes me gain excess weight. It's not something I want to make a habit of. So I've been moving again toward relying on my hunger to tell me when to eat, and making sure I get through the perishable foods I already have instead of eating out too much.
Maybe tomorrow I'll want to eat an entire Little Caesar's pizza, and I'll probably do it. I'm less worried about having strict control over myself at all times, and more interested in general trends -- overall, is my overeating obsessive? Or is it something I can enjoy in moderation, as a contrast to a healthy baseline? As I wrestle with finding the right balance, can I see that overall I'm getting where I want to go? Yes? Good enough!
