2008 Honda Fit Sport 5 Speed

Shared Experiences

Partial Solar Eclipse 8/21/2017

I usually ramble in my journal and only share my thoughts after I have them unraveled and expressed in a comprehensible way. But I have a feeling I am not going to succeed with this train of thought so will share things as is for now and maybe others can help me express my thoughts or point me towards similar thoughts.

Some of my least favorite things to hear from family and well-meaning friends:
"You don't understand because you don't look that way."
"You don't know what it's like unless you have kids."
"It's different because you are...."

Those comments frustrated me because I felt that I did understand whatever situation we were talking about regardless of my lack of personal experiences. I can sympathize with my sister's, or any woman's, struggle to juggle work, family, marriage, kids, and personal fulfillment without having to live her life. I can imagine what it must be like to worry about your child or feel helpless as you watch her struggle through life, without ever having my own child. My brush with hate and racism is minor (if there is such a thing as minor evil), but I believed I understood the anxiety, fear, and anger some of our neighbors feel as they go about their day.

I thought I could intellectualize feelings and emotions.

I was wrong.

I can imagine those emotions but it is not the same as actually feeling them. Oddly enough, it took yesterday's solar eclipse to remind me of that. I got all emotional seeing the moon slowly blocking the sun. I read about the eclipse. I saw pictures of them. I viewed time-lapsed videos of them. But none of that gave me the rush of awe and feelings of insignificance as actually seeing it myself through the filtered glasses.

I still believe I can understand something without having to experience it.

But perhaps my family and friends were not talking about understanding on an intellectual level, but on an experiential level. For emotions, such as fear, hate and love, cannot truly exist alone in thought experiments. They have to be lived. And the shared experiences with those around you are the cement that hold and solidify those feelings. Without those shared experiences, you are left with only what you imagined those feelings would be like --- without actually feeling those emotions.

Anyway, I don't really know where I was going with all this. Guess struggling to understand current events and how people can feel emotions that are so foreign to me sent me down this winding road. It was not an epiphany or anything. More like a reminder that life is meant to be experienced, not intellectualized.

But experiences can be so messy.
Thinking about life is so much safer than living it.
........ to be continued ......

Da Suls

Fortunate is she who experiences the love & devotion of a feline companion.

Farewell, Sully. Go find the others.

5/1999~7/30/2017

Last Pix With Sully

1:30 pm on Sunday 7/30/17

Sully and Miquelrius Planner

__________
"Enlightenment often comes on the tail of disillusionment." ~~ Struggling Eternal Optimist.

Sully and Friends

__________
"Enlightenment often comes on the tail of disillusionment." ~~ Struggling Eternal Optimist.

The Spiral Staircase

It feels like I am going in circles, not getting anywhere.  Sometimes I get flashes of clarity and believe that I am finally near the top, only to be met with another curve.  Maybe it would be better if I look for an exit door that will let me out of this stairwell instead of stubbornly trying to reach the top.  Hoping my persistence or foolishness will pay off and I will break through that top door one day soon.  I think today is that day.  Or was that just another curve?

image from Dicenoir Design

"My folly was not in feeling the way I did; my folly was in believing it was mutual."

Enlightenment often comes on the tail of disillusionment. Struggling eternal optimist.

Sully at The Park

Sweet Sully cheering me up at the park with his antics.

"But many of us seek community solely to escape the fear of being alone.  Knowing how to be solitary is central to the art of loving.  When we can be alone, we can be with others without using them as a means of escape."
--- Bell Hooks

Just be careful not to confuse being solitary with isolating oneself from others to avoid being hurt again :)

Ford Horizon 1990

Easy One Pot Microwave Curry Potato-Rice

The secret is in the awesome covered microwave crockpot.
1/2 cup uncooked white rice (I used jasmine)
1 medium russet potato peeled and cubed
3 kale leaves, de-stemmed and chopped
1.25 cup of vegetable broth (or use 1 teaspoon of a vegetable broth powder mixed with 1.25 cup of water)
1 tsp of curry powder

Combine the broth, curry powder and rice in the pot. Add the kale. Stir. Add the cubed potatoes on top. No need to stir the potatoes (the broth will not cover the potatoes). You want the rice to be submerged in the broth. Potatoes can sit on top and cook from the steam.

Cover (the lid has a vent)
Microwave high (100%) for 5 minutes (800 watts). Then lower to 50% for 16 minutes.
Leave in microwave for at least 15 minutes afterwards to allow the liquid to be absorbed, the rice and potatoes to finish cooking. I left mine in for 30 minutes when possible.

Stir or fluff gently to mix the potatoes with the rice mixture. Yummy!