Category Archives: Emotion

Tainted (Free Verse)

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Photograph taken at Andersonville National Historic Site in central Georgia.
A gorgeous day:
   the sky is blue;
   the air is crisp,
      and a bird swoops in low
          over the field to land
             in search of insects.

The sign is kind of a bummer:

   It tells me that 13,000
      people died here --
   most by shitting themselves 
      into unconsciousness.
     (it doesn't use those exact words.)

This is Andersonville -- 
   site of a Civil War prison camp.

Here, I believe in ghosts.
   I don't believe in ghosts
      when drinking my morning coffee
      at my dining room table.
   I don't believe in them when I 
      turn off my bedside lamp.
   I don't believe in them anywhere --
      anywhere else -- really. 

But here they vibrate up
    through my boot heals,
        and I fear I may 
           shit myself.

PROMPT: Fear and Self-Doubt

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Daily writing prompt
How do you handle fear and self-doubt?
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Feel it but don’t feed it. I feel whatever emotional sensation it brings with my whole attention, but don’t ruminate — i.e. don’t let the mind go into worst-case scenario building or pity partying or self-criticism. Use the sensation as an anchor for one’s awareness. This honors the source of consternation while recognizing that one’s mental (/ emotional) experience of an event is not the event, itself — i.e. that one has influence over one’s experience even when one has zero influence over the event. Gain confidence with the small emotional experiences and work toward the big ones.

This was the great gift I received in being taught sakshi bhava, the yogic practice of dispassionate witnessing.

PROMPT: Quote

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Daily writing prompt
Do you have a quote you live your life by or think of often?
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“I am an old man and have known a great many troubles, but most of them have never happened.” – Mark Twain

“There is nothing either good or bad but thinking makes it so.” – William Shakespeare, Hamlet

“What you imagine, you create.” – Siddhartha Guatama Buddha

All restatements of one key principle, that our [mental / emotional] experience of the world is an entirely separate thing from the world itself. The latter one has almost no control over, the former one can reach a state of complete control (granted through painstaking and relentless effort.)

PROMPT: Nervous

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Daily writing prompt
What makes you nervous?
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Chemical interactions in (and between) my nervous, enteric nervous, and endocrine systems make me nervous.

Whiplash Weather [Free Verse]

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Photograph taken in Stepantsminda, Georgia of evergreens in the foreground and Mount Shani in the background.
Mountains are the
     Lamborghini of weather --
  from gray and dismal to
    gloriously sunny 
       and back again
           in record time. 
 It may rain and the droplets
   burn off before noon,
     leaving no trace of 
        the gloom.
  One day may feel
    multiple ways before 
      the sun goes down.

The human mind isn't
   built for such whiplash
      emotional experience.

PROMPT: Most Happy

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Daily writing prompt
When are you most happy?
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In moments of recognition of the world’s absurdity that suggest that any response other than amusement or bemusement is purely a waste of mental energy.

The Fray [Lyric Poem]

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Rainy December day
 blows in - not long to stay.
   From season to season,
   without any reason,
 sometimes we feel the fray.

PROMPT: Skill

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What skill would you like to learn?

FREEDIVING.

PROMPT: Pay More Attention

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What details of your life could you pay more attention to?

Mental states and somatic & emotional sensations. Sakshi Bhava is good stuff.

5 Books to Read If You Want to Live

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Taken on the Annapurna Sanctuary Trail in Nepal.

Over the years, I’ve read many books about survival in extreme or unexpected situations. Here are five of my favorites.

THE UNTHINKABLE by Amanda Ripley [Full Review]

What I like about this book: Ripley focuses heavily on the topic of mindset while exploring a wide range of survival situations from being stranded in a lifeboat to being in the Twin Towers on 9/11. It’s a fascinating – as well as educational – book.

SURVIVAL AT THE EXTREMES by Kenneth Kamler [Full Review]

What I like about this book: This book focuses on surviving in all the places humans are not adapted to, places where one cannot live for long without ongoing technological support. These places include Mt. Everest (with which the author has personal experience,) the ocean, and the harshest of deserts. Kamler is a medical doctor and the book, therefore, does a good job of explaining the limits of human physiology.

EXTREME FEAR by Jeff Wise [Full Review]

What I like about this book: Wise’s book examines how fear can work against us in challenging situations (e.g. causing one to freeze at the wrong time) and what methods have been developed to overcome such crippling or inappropriate fear responses. This book is not entirely about life-and-death survival, but it does have a lot to say that is relevant to the subject.

INTO THE WILD by Jon Krakauer [Full Review]

What I like about this book: This book is not like the others. There are no physical or mental techniques for survival described in it, nor discussions of physiology. Rather, it is an extremely well-written cautionary tale about a young man who goes out into the wilderness and gets in over his head. It is highly readable food-for-thought.

98.6 by Cody Lundin [Full Review]

What I like about this book: This is the closest thing to an actual survival manual on my list. But it’s written in conversational, folksy style that makes it easy to read, despite the daunting subject matter. As the title suggests, Lundin’s central premise is that one must keep the body burning at its appropriate temperature, or else…