What we fear and what we love

We all have our values and our fears.

There are many people like me. I value positivity. I want to optimize the situation so far as is in my power.

Some fear being disappointed.

You can’t have a plan of action for everything but you can have a plan of attitude, is what I say.

We can be motivated by fear and can also be motivated by desire. By our desire attraction to things to be a certain way, or by being repelled by another.

Secretly, I fear regret. A lot. A fear of disappointing myself. And sometimes it motivates me. That is what makes me overreact when someone is being what I perceive as negative; I feel it threatens my ability to make the most of whatever happens, threatens to put me in that place of regret later. Of wishing I had done better.

I might explode sometimes a bit. Or lash out. Or say “you’re not being realistic you’re being pessimistic.” (Well if we only acknowledged the positives would.

So I might react like a scared animal. Run away, Lash out if I feel trapped, because I don’t want to resign to freeze.

But when I remember that when you talk negatively to me you just want to save me from disappointment, I am able to feel calm. while I still don’t think or feel the way you do I don’t feel so bad about what you say anymore. I resent you less, and yes take what you say with mrow salt, but that’s okay.

It takes some optimism to realize this, but at least I know it’s because you care ;)

We have different fears, but maybe we can meet in the middle. We both value each other, and what we say is because we want the best for each other, and that’s a pretty bright place to start.

Updated August 1, 2019

Pessimism vs Realism

Sometimes, in a discussion where a person brings up a potential unfavourable outcomes they are accused of being negative. Sometimes this is true, other times it is not.

If you are discussing an uncertain situation and you *only* acknowledge the potential favourable outcomes, would you call that realistic?

Be one to act

Have oh ever walked up to a xwalk and forgot to push the walk button?

It happens sometimes.
But what if the next person comes and assumes the first person did?
(What if they don’t want to make the first person feel like they don’t trust hem to do heir one job?)
What if a big group of people do this? And people line up on the other side too, and think “there’s no left turn and they would have

Act. Be one too act, to do something that’s not your job. It help you be in a society that makes sure nobody and not all of us get left behind.

Backdated from 2021-09-26 posting, when this was found

‘Rain’ versions 2 and 1, Uplook, and SHELL other contemporary art from the week

(Actually posted on the 31st. Moved to put in chronological order)

No man’s land. Part indigenous to someone else’s land, part colonizer to that someone else’s land. Paying to live where I was born, on another someone else’s land.

Shot at from both sides. Why do we put so much importance on these imaginary lines ?

Strangers’ Faces In the City

We come to know strangers’ faces, until one day we don’t see them anymore

What becomes of them?

What becomes of the moments we had?

In the long run, it’s ideal to be with someone who sees the best in you even when you don’t see or feel it yourself.

(posted 2021-04-09)

Act. Be one too act, to do something that’s not your job. It help you be in a society that makes sure nobody and not all of us get left behind.

(postdated from 2021-04-09)

Place

Place.

Where you are. What you see. Where you stand. A sense of place.

I remember as a child the moment I realized how much the place a person was born in dictates their life. The places they go, the sights they see and people they meet and become friends wth and marry. Things that shape their lives.

The opportunities and influences that happen to be in the same place they end up.

Moving far away is a big deal.

Culture.

I guess that’s what culture is, I eventually thought. What’s nearby. Culture was a very difficult concept for me to grasp. Isn’t everybody unique?

Finally understanding this helped me learn to explain that this means that although in Canada violence isn’t as bad overall as in some other parts of the world, it doesn’t mean the people in Canada are deeply any better than people born somewhere else. It just means things are easier for us than it is for them. Maybe that overall people around have made it easier to be peaceful.

We cannot take all the credit for ourselves, and should not judge the people in or coming from other places so harshly as people often do.

Art. ‘Arts and Culture’.

What does art have to do with culture? I asked.

What you see. The shapes, the foods and smells that have become familiar, and natural enough to grow from. Often dictated by materials. The natural resources in your general place. What is not so hard to find there.

Is that why certain colours become associated with certain cultures? Because that is what people had most available to make paints and dyes?

Maybe their yellow stains a different colour over time than some other places yellow. Or maybe they use so much red-orange because of all the iron in the soil, it is so available.

Opportunity.

Moving far away is a really, really big deal.

It takes control beyond what was given. I think that’s why I have always felt obligated to move far away someday, at least for a little while.

I see why people see it as an accomplishment to leave your hometown and to not marry someone you went to high school with. Which is sad for people who marry their high school sweetheart, because it doesn’t mean their love must any less real, but it sounds like some people assume it does.

Like the art and shapes and smells and colours that become a base for  your own art to grow from in all the ways it is alike and all the ways it is different.

All the ways it is alike and all the ways it is different.

Like the paintings and the music you come to love, I suppose it could become the same way with the people and traits you find beautiful and the things you come to love.

What has been given the time to settle inside you deeply, and then what has come to grow to be alike it or different. Though sometimes people do resent what is there.

I won’t blame people for thinking I’m ugly-looking.

How big does a place have to be for people to say it has its own culture?

A Sense of Place.

Does that mean having a feel for your location and the vibe there, or your own belonging or purpose? I suppose they can affect eachother.

~Break~

Sensodyne toothpaste
Razors with the gel strip
Lemon extract

In my culture, traditionally people write grocery lists on very oblong pads of paper with a magnet on the back to put it on the fridge.

Real estate agents make them a lot around here.

I imagine this is the case all over the place, but come to think of it, it’s not.

Not everywhere has grocery stores.

~unbreak~

“Do you like arts and culture, or science and technology?”
“I guess my favourites are arts and science. And English.”
“Oh, that’s arts.”
“Why is English ‘arts’?”

Language.

In English, for all the types of love we just say “love”. You could say “affection”, but depending on the context it could sound funny or awkward or bold to use that word.

(Perhaps is how English is art. It may be correct but it feels different.)

And it can feel different to people based on the influence from their place. English in England versus English in Canada.

(There is ‘arts and culture’.)

In Anishinabemowin, the word for “old man“ is the same way you would say “earth caretaker.”

That changes the way you not only consciously think about things, but the very way you see or perceive the world to be. Naturally, using this word comes the understanding that it is mankind’s responsibility to take care of the earth.

Built-in understanding through language.

Place. The sounds you often hear, and words people say around you a lot.

Sounds like family.

I heard that when babies babble it helps them learn to pronounce words, but that as time goes on they stop making the sounds they don’t hear around them.

We were born so much more the same than we often realize when we are grown.

And then there are the moments of realization I still get in a room of adult humans, realizing that every single one of us were once infants.

But that is a thought for another time.

Feeling inside out - Introducing Dayzie

In life we go through many stages. Many states.

Sometimes it feels we are even turned inside out. Nevertheless, is is all part of our dynamic and wild human experience.

Introducing the Dayzie collection, 2019