Posted on : By : dscottmaiorca Posted in : Uncategorized

A Stoic Exercise`

I’m finding myself dealing with uncertainty. My temporary job feels like it’s wrapping up. I don’t know if I’ll be kept as they reduce staff. I might be I do my job exceptionally well, but I can’t know that for sure. With the uncertainty comes the anxiety. The second glueing questions, the not knowing.

It presents me with a great stoic exercise. There are aspects of this I can control, do the best job I can. I can’t control if that let’s me keep the job, or if my best is the best — maybe someone is better than me, more useful. I can’t control that, so I shouldn’t try. In this case I should follow my Tao enter the stream, and go with the flow.

As I’m researching my options, moving forward, there are things I can know. Things like are there similar positions available. Can I duplicate the pay scale? I am actively researching these, and should, because I can know the answers. Knowing the answers reduces they uncertainty. It decreases the anxiety. The questions I can’t know th answers to like what happens next, I shouldn’t fret about. I can’t know those answers and that’s where I should enter the stream/go with the flow.

This could be an exercise of any philosophy, I guess, even in the post I’ve mixed Taoism and Stoicism. With the being said I think Epictetus said it better than I could.

“Some things are in our control and others not. Things in our control are opinion, pursuit, desire, aversion, and, in a word, whatever are our own actions. Things not in our control are body, property, reputation, command, and, in one word, whatever are not our actions. The things in our control are by nature free, unrestrained, unhindered; but those not in our control are weak, slavish, restrained, belonging to others. Remember, then, that if you suppose that things which are slavish by nature are also free, and that what belongs to others is your own, then you will be hindered. You will lament, you will be disturbed, and you will find fault both with gods and men. But if you suppose that only to be your own which is your own, and what belongs to others such as it really is, then no one will ever compel you or restrain you. Further, you will find fault with no one or accuse no one. You will do nothing against your will. No one will hurt you, you will have no enemies, and you not be harmed.”

― Epictetus, Enchiridion and Selections from the Discourses

Posted on : By : dscottmaiorca Posted in : Uncategorized

Anger is Contagious

I’m beginning to wonder if anger isn’t simply internal, not just anger but, maybe, all emotions, have a life of their own. Maybe, they are just energy— like waves— crashing across a shore, and we are the shore. Maybe they have a life of their own moving from host to host — like an inter dimensional virus simply looking for a way to replicate themselves.

Either way what if I’m right? What if emotions aren’t internal, a mere biochemical creation? What if they exist out side of us and we are merely receivers?

That would mean when we experience a negative emotional state either our immunity was down and we were infected by it, or we chose to let it in.

Maybe we could choose to stop spreading the virus or choose to diffuse the wave before we let it continue on.

Seems like the right thing to do.

Posted on : By : dscottmaiorca Posted in : Real life

The Tiger Can’t Kill Us Anymore

The tigers can’t kill us anymore. That’s my new motto. There’s a lot of uncertainty in everyone’s lives right now. There’s a lot of uncertainty in mine. We are job hunting in a pandemic. Our lease is expiring. I am calm and focused. I have every right to be freaked out, but that doesn’t serve me or anyone else living in Fluxtopia.

All of the freak-out feelings, anxiety, stress, being overwhelmed, are evolutionary adaptations left over from our hunting and gathering days. They are our programmed response to the unknown, to the dangers that lurked behind every bush. Lurked, past tense, since we don’t live in that world anymore, but our monkey mind wants to keep us alive from threats that aren’t real anymore. The tigers can’t kill us anymore.

When you’re in the middle of a tiger-induced meltdown, you have to stop it. You have to stop giving in to the monkey mind, and its fears of tigers. When we’re panicked we make bad decisions. At least, I know I have in the past.

So how do you do that? First, Know Thyself. Who are you? What do you want? If you’re not sure, check out the Gossip Test http://dscottmaiorca.com/?p=146I posted about earlier. Know Thyself: knowing who you are has always been the key to beating the metaphoric tigers. The Greeks knew, and that’s why it was written above the Oracle of Delphi, that and “all things in moderation.” Epictetus, a Greek philosopher, was born a slave but became one of the greatest philosophers ever. He knew anxiety, the monkey-mind, and tigers. Epictetus put it this way, “say what you would be, then do what you have to do.” The first step: Know Thyself. The second step: do the work.

You can’t do the work, whatever it is, if you let your monkey mind worry about the imaginary tigers. How do you quiet it? I’ve found a few tricks that have worked for me, which I’ll cover in greater detail later, but for now, I know who I am and what I want. Given our lease situation, I don’t want to be homeless – so I am focused on that, and doing that work. The work calling about rentals, checking on buying an RV. Right, that is the primary goal. In Fluxtopia you have to have that figured out and you have to do the work. 

I have other goals, longer term goals, like writing, blogging, and being healthy.  I am still working towards those, and still doing what I have to do to achieve them, but I’m focusing on the primary tiger first. I’m focusing most of my energy on that goal. You have to do that in Fluxtopia. Truthfully you always have, but in a flux it’s more obvious than ever. 

If you have figured out who you are and what you want then, you figure out what tiger, if any, is most important. Like I said earlier, for me, housing is the primary tiger. Not facing that one will impact every other tiger. Focusing on that has made it easier to quiet the monkey mind. 

Your tigers might not be so obvious, but they might. You have to figure out what tiger has the biggest impact on you, what tiger impacts the other ones. Focus on that, and when your monkey mind starts to chatter, remind yourself there is only the one tiger. It’s not perfect, but it helps. You can face one tiger easier than facing an army of tigers. 

Knowing which tiger to fight helps quiet the monkey mind. You have to decide which one is most dangerous, and focus on that. When you feel overwhelmed or panicked and start dwelling on the other things – or all of them at once – remind yourself the tigers can’t kill you anymore. 

Unless you let them.

Posted on : By : dscottmaiorca Posted in : Real life

How to Use the Gossip Test In Fluxtopia

I know a lot of you left the Gossip Test post saying something to the effect of: that’s a great idea, but haven’t you noticed the world is collapsing and we don’t have a year to find ourselves? We need answers now. I left the post with the same thoughts. I also left the post knowing that this post was coming – how to use the Gossip Test In Fluxtopia. If you haven’t read The Gossip Test, feel free to click herehttp://dscottmaiorca.com/?p=146.

With lockdown and quarantine, I’ve had an opportunity to really look at what’s important to me and what I actually value. Sheltering in place forcibly removed tons of my distractions – tons of my excuses for why I was too busy to do things I said were important.

It also created new distractions. A few months ago my wife lost her job to COVID related downsizing. She has been our primary income earner this year, while I took care of the kids, finished my MFA, and started publishing. Unemployed in the pandemic age is not where anyone wants to be, but this is Fluxtopia. Uncertainty, a little more obvious right now than I’d like, is the norm. At first we panicked, looking for and applying for almost every job in the country that we were qualified for. It was overwhelming. I was overloaded, almost to the point of not being able to function. I could get job applications turned in by completing marathon Bataan Death Marches for a few days, then I’d spend just as long doing nothing, unable to focus. I was stuck.

Then I remembered some simple stoic wisdom.

You can’t control the world. You can’t control the pandemic. You can control yourself, and how you react. That’s where the Gossip Test comes in again.

Faced with massive uncertainty and a bleak outlook, I sat down to re-figure out who I was. To reconnect with me. To try once again to Know Thyself.

Circumstances dictated that I didn’t have a year to gather my data. I didn’t even have a month. So I started observing myself again. I found an old notebook and started taking notes on everything that really excited me. Given the circumstances, the notes were from books I am reading, job descriptions, text messages, my weekly phone call with my best friend, and a few TV shows I watch. I also started gathering what my kids were talking about, and what excited them.

My wife and I put all those notes and ideas together in a new and improved family Gossip Test, and came up with the patterns, the ideas, and the trends. Seeing what everyone wanted and Knowing Ourselves allowed us to pick a location, to focus on what was important to us, and apply for nearly sixty jobs between the two of us. These were jobs that made sense for us, jobs that met our needs.

While we’ve focused on what we want, what allows us to move forward, and what fits who we are, we haven’t stopped looking for options that help us in the short run. We still have to put a roof over our heads and food on the table. There’s a zen saying: Before enlightenment, chop wood, carry water. After enlightenment, chop wood, carry water. A dear friend abbreviates it CW/CW. Even if you Know Thyself, CW/CW still applies. So, while focusing on the end goal, we are looking for short term, local jobs that let us CW/CW. That’s a key in Fluxtopia: plan for the future, but provide for the moment.

I know uncertainty is scary, especially if you have kids. Uncertainty and the unknown are the norm in Fluxtopia. We have to learn how to accept that, and how to navigate that. That starts with knowing who you are. There’s a reason Know Thyself is written above the entrance to the Oracle of Delphi. There’s a reason it’s a passage in Hamlet. You can’t control Fluxtopia, though you can control how you respond to it, and to do that you have to know who you are. You have to Know Thyself, and even the short-form Gossip Test will help you do that.

Posted on : By : dscottmaiorca Posted in : Real life

Take The little Steps

If you read my last posthttp://dscottmaiorca.com/?p=100, you know I mentioned the idea of Fluxtopia, rather than dystopia or utopia. I know it’s an odd concept, especially for a largely dystopian writer, but truth is stranger than fiction, as they say. More importantly reality, at least for the majority of Americans, is never as bad as our dystopian fantasies. That being said, if you’re reading this post from the comfort of your self-isolation at home, you probably have it better than a lot of people right now. Take the time to donate to a cause you believe in to help those who have it worse than you. I’ll leave to your own conscious to figure out what that cause should be. Personally, I’m getting together some household items to donate to a local church which is still running a pantry for those in need, but what you do is up to you.

I think this is more important while we’re worrying about the future: take the time to think about how good you have it. Reframe that negativity into something positive — and do something to help someone else.

 As a writer of zombie fiction and dystopian sci-fi, my mind can go wild on the dystopian stuff. It seems to be my natural space, actually, but now that we are in a flux period where dystopian fiction could seem more like non-fiction it’s important to remember that it’s not. Or, at least, that it doesn’t have to be. We can take whatever little steps we can to make the changes we want to.

If you read some of my weight loss posts, herehttp://dscottmaiorca.com/?p=67 and herehttp://dscottmaiorca.com/?p=81 you know I lost seventy pounds in 2019. I lost that weight by making little, almost nonsensically small changes, but I made those changes daily. I didn’t look at the big picture. I was morbidly obese, and probably going to die from diabetes, or heart disease, or any of the other things. I looked at what I could do, I mean actually do, like exercise for 12 minutes at a very low impact, or take a few extra minutes to talk in the evening. The little changes paid off in a big way.

 I’m suggesting that same strategy here. Don’t look at the scary stuff that gives you anxiety. Don’t worry about the things you can’t control, or the things that will shut you down mentally. Find something you can do to help – and do it. Help others, but also remember to help yourself and your family. What can you do to make them healthier and happier? 

Focusing on the good you can do will make you feel better. It will keep you focused, but just as important, it will make at least a little piece of our Fluxtopia better.

Posted on : By : dscottmaiorca Posted in : Real life

Fluxtopia: What We Can Learn From Living In A Pandemic.

I know everyone is thinking about the Coronavirus, as they should be, but it shouldn’t be all doom and gloom. Don’t get me wrong, we should be worried; the world is changing, but things are never as bad as they seem. We tend to think of the world in binary terms— day and night, love and hate, black and white.It’s probably an evolutionary adaptation. It’s easier to simplify things so that we can make quick decisions. Can you imagine a primitive hunter and gatherer stopping to play all the possible angles when they heard a branch break behind them? By the time they figured out how to respond the tiger would have had dinner.

    We simplified things because we had to to survive. We see the world as either dystopia or utopia. Either it’s Planet of the Apes, or it’s Star Trek. Don’t get me wrong, I love both of those stories/worlds, but in reality we don’t ever get dystopia or utopia. We live in fluxtopia. That state of being in the middle — in flux.

    The world is different now. We are aware that pandemics aren’t just things that did happen. They are things that can happen. That realization alone has changed the world. While you can’t easily find toilet paper or flour right now, and the economy is looking bleak, that doesn’t mean the world is ending. It’s changing. It’s in flux.

    I could list about a hundred horrible things that might happen, some that probably will, but you can get that on just about any other site. Instead, I want to talk about the good things that are happening.

Wildlife is returning to places like Venice. Click here to https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2020/mar/20/nature-is-taking-back-venice-wildlife-returns-to-tourist-free-city read the Guardian story about it. It’s pretty amazing. Air pollution in China has dropped to record lowshttps://www.cnn.com/2020/03/17/health/china-air-pollution-coronavirus-deaths-intl/index.html, as I suspect it will happen elsewhere. Once the curve flattens, and the shelter in place orders are lifted, if we remember the impact they had we can continue the trend of cleaner air and water— as long as we remember.

    I know that seems Polly Anna, but my observation is we are seeing the world differently. We’re worried about our friends and families. We are talking with them more. We are checking in, instead of checking out. We are becoming more concerned about other people. When things start to return to a new normal we can continue that—as long as we remember.

    If you’ve been to a grocery store recently, you’ve probably seen the empty shelves. It looks pretty freaky. Unless you’re pushing 100 you’ve never seen scarcity in the industrialized world. We’re used to being able to run to the store whenever we want— buy whatever we want/need/can afford or put on our credit cards. With the stores being out of things we’re still surviving. In fact, I think we’re serving better. I’ve finally convinced my kids not to waste food. We’re having real talk about the importance of being responsible with food choices, not eating so much junk. They’ve seen the stores. They know the crap cereal they prefer, the fruit snacks, the chips aren’t as easy to get now, so they are self-rationing when they eat them. I suspect a lot of people are doing the same thing. In the long run, this will make us healthier. Once everything settles down we can continue eating healthier— if we remember.

    I think that’s the key to staying sane in fluxtopia: look for the positives. Look for the things you see that are making the world better, and remember them when everything settles down. Adapt to the bad things, make smart decisions about your health and income. But don’t dwell on them. Dwell on the positives and when this all settles down — remember.