love

Meta-Optimism . . . Meta-Living

/ Kennedy Farr / 5 Comments

meta. 6a00d8341da2a953ef01156f5e41af970c-pi

Meta.

meta . . . referring to itself or to the conventions of its genre; self-referential [Google’s “define: meta”] 

Metacognition is thinking about thinking.  Metadata is data about data.  Meta-joke is joking about jokes.  Meta-discussion is discussion about discussion. And then there is meta-emotion: emotion about emotion. Whew.

This past week, I was listening to a friend who was needing to take care of some personal business that involved a massive amount of emotional energy.  It set me to remembering some of my rather spectacular meta-emotional experiences from the past. She shared what she was feeling and what was compelling her to move forward in her life in this particular relationship.  As we talked, I sensed a thickening layer of doubt and dread and uncertainty blanketing her true emotions.

It was as if there were a miasma of other emotions fogging in and layering on top of her Truth.  Feelings of fear and awkwardness and regret and  . . ..  I had to stop her and ask: What are you really truly feeling?  What is the bottom-line feeling that is motivating you to act?  What is it that you truly want?

It made me think of what I call some of life’s Liver Moments.  I once read that the liver is composed of sheets of tissue that are extraordinarily connective.  That it is a mass of layers that is seemingly impossible to sew up and repair.  Insert suture.  Oops.  That might not have been such a good idea.  Try again in a new spot.  Nope, not there.  Oops, the needle just messed that area up.  Yikes.  Now there is a bigger mess to repair.

You get the idea.  Whether this is true in the anatomical and surgical sense in the life of a human liver, I don’t know.  I have not researched the anatomy adequately . . . I read of this in reference to damaged connections and irreparable relationships, so I suspect it is possible that the author was stretching his or her simile a bit. Trying to fix things sometimes makes a muck of things.  We sometimes believe in the possibility of healing when trying to re-connect.  To repair and to heal.

But still.  There is always the possibility that certain situations are not destined to be patched up like new.  In some relationships, some things are pretty tough to doctor up.  Things are done or not done.  Words are spoken or not spoken.  I love yous are rat-holed in some cubby of the heart.  Patience is discarded.  Kindness is ignored.  Offense is taken.  Affection is withheld.  Green-eyed envy establishes residence.  Fear dominates.  Once that suture goes in, over and over again in an attempt to gain some purchase, maybe it is time to take a step back.  Allow the whole thing to breathe for a bit.  Let the liver have some healing time.  Move in a new direction.  Stop, drop, and roll.

stacks of quilts. 12db09c68d1cd87d57637c79d56379f6There have certainly been times when I have really complicated things by embracing and nurturing some serious meta-emotion.  Emoting about emotions.  Feelings to the exponential square.  I have blanketed emotion upon emotion to the point of suffocating my true feelings.  I was no longer capable of recognizing the core emotion that I was trying to cover up with rational thought.  When finding myself in an emotional sticky wicket, it seems that I always want to know the outcomes well in advance .

Today.  Am I any wiser in the ways of meta-emotion?  I don’t know.  Occasions occur, and I sometimes allow an emotional hijacking to occur.  I go to that place — that blind — that camouflages reality.  I indulge myself by making something bigger than it is.  Still.  There are also those times when I take care of my true emotions and allow them to speak to me in a voice that is much louder than a whisper.  I choose real-time life over what could have been . . . what could be.  

This is powerful.  I can be such a hard-driven optimist at times, I completely ignore all of the true and real signs that are directing or mis-directing me in life.  High performance optimism has rewarded me so well.  But it has also steered me wrong.  I sometimes must caution myself to not always see how things can be.  My life lesson: Be aware of meta-optimism: optimistic about optimism.

The ultimate meta life lesson for me? Aim for Meta-Living: living about living.  Life as a self-referential entity and referring to the conventions of its genre.  Not fighting the Now.  Being in the moment.  Embracing Now.  Setting aside the suture and letting the liver heal and move on without relying on blind and extraordinary optimism as an intervention.  Removing the blankets of emotions that suffocate my soul’s origin.  Allowing my happiness to breathe.

My present moment?  I embrace and subscribe to the state of meta-happy: happy about happiness.  So much more fun!  And so much more real when I allow my emotions, my thoughts, my dreams, my goals, my life’s work to guide me into the conventions of my own happy creativity.  For this and for the people in my life who make my life so much bigger and more wonderful, I feel an abundance of appreciation and gratitude.

toaster oven

 

Life in 3-D TechniLove

/ Kennedy Farr / Leave a comment

 

 

 

 

057

beautiful leaves. positively positive. self love.

 

 

 

cropped-osmia-avoseta-bees-nests-solitart-bees.jpg

 

 

Color.  Gorgeous vibrant messy color.

Google’s “define color”: the property possessed by an object of producing different sensations on the eye as a result of the way the object reflects or emits light

Love this! “different sensations . . .” [Yes!]  “. . . as a result of the way the object reflects or emits light”

Isn’t this just the best definition of life?  We experience different sensations as a result of the way we reflect or emit light and darkness; happiness and sadness; laughter and anger; love and fear.  So much of life is defined by how we reflect or emit our essence.

Love is the ultimate reflection.  It is eternal.  It never wanes.  It grows before our very soul’s eyes.  We are so richly blessed to be able to reflect and emit love. toaster oven Wow is the ultimate understatement.  Love — like a Jackson Pollock painting — has the power to not only Wow! and to draw you into the details of texture and color, but it also holds the magic to reflect the most intricate designs of light and contrast.

I love color.  Who doesn’t?  Although my closet is full of black, gray, and black-and-white-polka-dot dresses, I do love color.

My favorite color?  If I were to describe the color of love, I would say Sky Blue Pink.  What color would you say describes the color of love?

This video by OK Go is a celebration of fantastical color.  So fanciful and creative and beautiful and just plain fun.  It is my wish that your day today be replete to the brim with TechniLove.

. . . and for those of you who like to understand the technology and background behind fantastical magic:

 

 

Be Somebody. Be the Difference.

/ Kennedy Farr / 2 Comments

1527135_571874089554544_978490371_nThis is such a great quote.  It serves as a healthy reminder to just “do something about that.”  Simply do it.  Be the somebody who realizes that I am somebody.  Who comprehends that my life matters.  Who understands that I can make a difference.

That I can be the difference.  That I am Somebody.

We all have such a unique influence on the planet.  I think about this sometimes, and it is staggering to imagine the ripples that we all are creating with our thoughts, our actions, our spirits.  We are this huge swirl of humanity that is pulsing and being and feeling.  The influence that our thoughts and emotions has on the planet is so immense.

maxfield parrishWhen I respect this truth, I feel both empowered and deeply humbled.  We all can be the somebody that does something that alters the course of history.  We all have the freedom to choose the direction of this course.  Freedom.  We are powerful beyond measure.

And some days . . . it takes so very little to make a positive difference.  A touch, a smile, a kind word, a phone call or email, a shared joke, a declaration of love.  Wow.  Our influence.  It is all so very huge and enormous, isn’t it?

I want to be Somebody that fosters growth.  Who provides encouragement and support.  Who loves freely.  Who laughs at silly jokes with my best friend.  Who loves unconditionally.  Who opens my heart and lets someone know that I deeply love him.  toaster oven

For when I open myself to life and creativity and laughter and love, I can’t help but be Somebody because I am confirming to another that he is Somebody. That she is making a positive difference. That he is loved beyond measure.  That she is selfless.  That he is just so crazy amazing.honey-bee

Tragedy takes place on a daily basis.  A seemingly insurmountable challenge presents itself in gargantuan disguise.  Bills stack up.  Love gets misplaced.  Work is unrewarding.  There is too much to do in too short a time.  Overwhelm-ment grows into discouragement.  Complications mutate in exponential proportions.

Still, so much of life is so simple: be Somebody.  Be the person whom you have been created to be.  Be . . . with a purpose that reflects who lives in your heart.

Today I will pay attention.  I will create.  I will love with wild abandon.   I will “do something about that.”  Today it is time to make a difference.  Time to be the difference.  Time to be Somebody.

maxfield-parrish-dreaming-or-october-1928-1383679864_org

 

 

 

The Submerged Truth

/ Kennedy Farr / 2 Comments

“I slept and dreamt that life was joy.

I awoke and saw that life was service.

I acted and behold, service was joy.”

– Rabindranath Tagore

The other night I dreamt that I had to fly a small, 6-passenger float plane.  I do not have my pilot’s license in waking life, and the same held true in my dream.  I found myself buckled into the pilot’s seat with no clue as to how to fly.

In the dream, I had the responsibility of taking off with a plane load of passengers.  The tails of the floats were riding extremely low in the water; we had a maximum load.  Sitting in the pilot’s seat, I relied on my prior experience as a passenger and lowered the flaps, adjusted the choke, “cleared” the dock, and then pulled back hard on the yoke.

In the dream, I was surprised that I acted with such confidence in my capability to fly and that the plane responded perfectly to whatever I did to the instrument panel, the flaps, and the yoke.  Miraculously, the plane’s floats separated themselves from the surface tension of the water, and we were safely in flight.  It was then that I turned to my passenger in the co-pilot seat and said, “The easy part is taking off.  The tricky part will be when it comes time for us to land.”

I woke up and thought about how much of my dream applies to life – how sometimes we are afraid to fly because of our perceived outcomes regarding the inevitable landing.  With that perfect clarity that only dreams can deliver, it occurred to me that I would like to fly without thought of the inevitable landing.

Virginia Woolf wrote, “Yet it is in our idleness, in our dreams, that the submerged truth sometimes comes to the top.”  My experiences have grown me and my dreams have inspired me to step into each day with some form — some resemblance — of my life’s vision.  I rarely check the flight roster for the day’s destination.  Instead, I pull back hard on the throttle and marvel at how wonderfully the plane responds to the thermals that provide air buoyancy.

Every day.  I feel so fortunate that I am alive and that I have the opportunity to laugh and love and live.  I may not know the particulars on how to land, but I have somehow managed to maintain sufficient aerodynamics that keep me in the air.  It all feels like an enormous miracle.  For this, I feel extraordinarily appreciative of the creativity, the generosity, the kindness, the love in my life that inspires me.  I feel so blessed.  toaster oven

 

Where is the Love?

/ Kennedy Farr / Leave a comment

One world.  One truth.  Love.  Peace.  Vision.  Values of humanity.  Fairness and equality.  Unity. “If you never know truth, you never know love.”

UNITY.  In mathematics, the word unity is defined as “the number one.”  When we create and experience Unity, we are experiencing life as one whole.  One truth.  One love.  We have joined together as 1.

Where is the love?  It is within us to give and share.  Freely.  It is outside of us to accept.  It is all around to embrace and to join with another and create 1.

How awesome is this?  To have the freedom to create unity with another? toaster oven

If you give a little love . . .

/ Kennedy Farr / 4 Comments

“Well if you are (what you love)
And you do (what you love)
I will always be the sun and moon to you toaster oven
And if you share (with your heart)
Yeah, you give (with your heart)
What you share with the world is what it keeps of you”

Wow.  I love this this song.  And the video.  It reminds me to love and to share and to give.  And then do it some more.  I am inspired to get out my paintbrush and paint some love of my own today.  Such a great message: Pay Attention.  Do What I Am Inspired to  Do.  Be proactive.  Be Loving . . . “Because life is fleeting.”  The small difference we make in a person’s life has an enormous ripple effect.  Share the love.

“What you share with the world is what it keeps of you.”

bigstock-Zen-stones-in-water-27418907

Into the Blue

/ Kennedy Farr / 2 Comments

what you focus on growsWHAT YOU FOCUS ON GROWS

I was feeling both convicted and uplifted by this thought this past week.  I got sidetracked by some healing worries that were robbing me of being in the moment.  I was gently reminded by someone that I was worrying and getting away from my self.  It’s true.  I was losing my way.  These were such good and loving words in a time in which I was feeling stressed — and fearful.  I love that this person cared enough to steer me back to my inner self.  To that place that lets me rest in the present moment.  All will be well.  All is well.

The power of the mind (and the heart and the soul and the spirit) never cease to inspire me into a state of wonder.  When I focus on positive things, amazing things happen.  When I focus on negative outcomes . . . I don’t feel like me.  I feel like I am being held captive by my own mis-directional thoughts.  When I no longer allow myself to be a captive, I choose to focus on those thoughts that will allow growth, healing, laughter, and love in my life.  This is SO much better.

Marianne Williamson writes in A Return to Love: “The more we learn about the light within us, the easier it ultimately becomes to forgive ourselves for the fact we’re not perfect yet.”  Perfection is one of those elusive concepts that is undefinable.  We instinctively aim toward Perfection, yet we don’t know what it looks like or where it lies.  It’s like hunting phantoms that skirt our perimeters of awareness.  We think we would know how it would feel if we “attained” it, but I am not so sure.  I think we would keep thinking that we weren’t quite there yet.  Like there is some extra super-duper level of perfect that exceeds 100%.

What all of this leads me to conclude is that Now is Perfect.  I will never experience more Perfection in my life than that which lies in this very moment.  Perfect is neither an A in French Phonology nor graduating magna cum laude with cords, pins, and honors.  It is not a promotion at work, and it isn’t a marriage proposal in Paris.  It isn’t slipping easily into your skinny jeans, and it isn’t pulling a pan of sky-high cream puffs out of the oven.

honey-beePerfection.  It is Now.  That was then, this is Now.  Life blooms into the most beautiful of moments when we least expect them to.  For this, I am immensely grateful.

blo0dyros3.deviantart.com

blo0dyros3.deviantart.com

Marianne Williamson: “A spiritual teacher from India once pointed out that there is no such thing as a gray sky.  The sky is always blue.  Sometimes, however, gray clouds come and cover the blue sky.  We then think the sky is gray.  It is the same with our minds.  We’re always perfect.  We can’t not be.  Our fearful patterns, our dysfunctional habits, take hold within our minds and cover our perfections.  Temporarily.  That is all.”

Whew.  All will be well.  All is well.  I’ve got this.  I can relax into the grey-sky moments, knowing that there is blue sky behind the clouds.  There is going to be that sunset that pierces the clouds with a radiance that inspires wonder and affirms love.  True love that douses fear with its fire.

When I remain in a loving state, I am in blue-sky country.  In blue-sky country, I feel myself re-adjusting my focus — the aim of my life’s trajectory . . . no longer toward Perfection but toward Love.  I might not always experience Perfection — in the sense of my physical humanity and the interactions that my day encounters.  But I can certainly extend the reach of my capacity to Love — which grows its own brilliant Perfection.  It is such a great feeling to reach through and part that curtain of Grey and get a glimpse of Blue.  I feel so. much. love and appreciation for those in my life who inspire me to extend my reach into the Blue.  I thank them with my love and devotion.  I feel so blessed.   toaster oven

I can pick up the phone.  Write that letter.  Express my love in action and in word.  Tell my Sweetheart: I Love You.  Completely lose myself in laughter with my Best Friend.  Encourage the special people in my life who are wondering what’s goin’ on.  Make new pathways to those who no longer feel close.  Be spontaneous in accepting the unexpected.  Show my doubts to the door.  Grow more Love.  Remember that the Grey is just a temporary veil that can and will alter its course.  Blue Sky is always there.  Is here.  “What you focus on grows”: I am focusing on Blue Sky.  It feels Perfect.

open-door

 

Begin.

/ Kennedy Farr / 4 Comments

“Begin doing what you want to do now.  We are not living in eternity.  We have only this moment, sparkling like a star in our hand — and melting like a snowflake.”  — Francis Bacon

How much of life do we spend waiting?  We wait for the bus, the plane, the train.  We wait until we are tall enough to ride the big-kid rides at the fair.  We wait until we are 21 to legally drink alcohol.  To vote.  To stay up late past our bedtime.  To get our driver’s license.  To move away and go on an adventure.  To buy our first car.  We wait for the plane to land and for our first kiss and for graduation from university.  We wait for promotions, raises, benefits, and bonuses.  We wait for love — true love — to enter into our lives.  We wait.  And wait.

And then there are the snowflake moments.  We don’t wait for ice cream to melt.  We don’t wait until the last of the chocolates are gone from the box.  We don’t wait for our vacation on Kauai’ to be over.  And we don’t wait for love to end.  Like that incredible sunset on Kaua’i, we want love to last forever.  And forever — because it is just so much fun and feels so great.  It really does.  We are just so lucky when we discover a Snowflake Moment.  toaster oven

These moments feel rare.  I read once that one inch of rain is the equivalent of approximately ten inches of snow.  That is a lot of snowflakes.   It takes a lot of them to get my attention.  But when they do, I am so happy.

It doesn’t take a social scientist to see a pattern here.  We don’t wait for these Snowflake Moments because we like these moments.  We find pleasure in them.  Savor them.  When they arrive, we feel supremely happy.  Sometimes they are over far too soon.  We share them and we tell our friends about them later.  We take pictures of them and post them to our social media page.  We write about them in our journals and maybe even make a scrapbook to better remember them.  We want them to last.  We are in the moment.  The joys of coincidence and spontaneity can be found in the Snowflake Moments.

I used to live at a high elevation on the snowy side of the mountains.  I shoveled a LOT of snow.  I shoveled the cabin roof, the woodshed roof, and the cellar roof to prevent damage or even collapse.  I shoveled snow away from the windows to prevent the surprise of broken glass and to allow some sunlight to stream into the windows.  I have shoveled my truck out of ditches and paths for hauling water.  I have done my share of what best can be described as Battling the Snow.  When I read this quote from Francis Bacon, I wish that I would have read it before I experienced all of those winters in such mighty snow.  I do believe that I would have gained a better perspective on digging out after a 3-day storm.

I would have told myself: Life is short.  True, there is a lot of shoveling to be done, but just Begin.  Focus on the moment.  Not on the blessed Chinook that will eventually start to blow come March and that will take care of the ice on the lake and the snow on the trail.  A reprieve is in sight: no more shoveling for another 5 months.  Whew.  I made it with all muscles intact.

Life feels so different now.  I am mindful of cultivating some sense of Focus . . . on Now and Try Something New and Begin.   I am learning that the fleeting fragility of snowflakes is truly very beautiful.  Stacks upon stacks of them . . . maybe not so much!  But they are gone so quickly.

I love what Francis Bacon has written: “We have only this moment.”  So beautiful.

 

When does life begin?

/ Kennedy Farr / Leave a comment

“We gain strength, and courage, and confidence by each experience in which we really stop to look fear in the face… we must do that which we think we cannot.”

“No one can make you feel inferior without your consent.”

“Do one thing every day that scares you.”

I wonder what experiences led Eleanor Roosevelt to write or express such wisdom.  Today, they are words on the page that inspire . . . but I would suspect that there were some sleepless nights that provided the wisdom and the conviction to be brave, take risks, and look fear in the face.

I have not read any biographies about Eleanor Roosevelt and I would suspect that Eleanor experienced her share of uncertainty and doubt.  Looking “fear in the face”?  You can’t make this stuff up from fiction-based imaginings.  It would be like writing a story about miracles without having experienced one.  You just can’t make it up.  It is necessary to have lived it.

I take her one quote to heart: “Do one thing every day that scares you.”  I don’t like feeling fear.  Fear is one of those queasy feelings that goes to my stomach and rests there like an ugly orc — ready to smite me down to smithereens if I steal a glance at it.  Fear is unpleasant, unpredictable, and unlovely.  It does not bring out the most attractive parts of me.  It gives me cause to doubt in my belief that something wonderful is about to happen.  It messes with my chi.  It gives me bad advice.  And it does not inspire me to lead by example.  Fear overpowers any other emotions.  It disallows my willingness to take a chance.  To do something risky.  It is a detour from bravery.  It is the absence of love.  And without love, what is life?

I have another Eleanor Roosevelt quote on my desk: “Yesterday is history, tomorrow a mystery, today is a gift.”  A gift.  Which leads me back to the reminder to do one thing every day that scares me.  This is all so much easier to write about in the wee hours of the night in my cozy house than to actually do.  Some days this gesture is a little thing.  Other days it is huge.  I have never regretted one single thing I have done while keeping Eleanor’s words in my heart.  I always feel better when I have chosen to beard the lion in its den.  If I succeed, my friends are there to celebrate with me.  If I fail, my loved ones are there to help me re-hash it with some degree of humor.  What is failure without a little light of humor shone on it?

People who are nearing the end of their lives have said that they didn’t regret the things they did.  Rather they regretted the things they did not do.  The same message with fancier language was written by Sydney J. Harris: “Regret for the things we did can be tempered by time; it is regret for the things we did not do that is inconsolable.”

life begins quoteWhen does life begin?  “At the end of your comfort zone”?  Today is a celebration of looking fear in the face and going for it.  Pushing past your comfort zone.  If you are feeling a lack of confidence, remember: “No one can make you feel inferior without your consent.”  We are as free as we choose to be in the face of fear.  By disallowing fear, we invite love to enter.  And what an amazing thing this is.

When I think on these things, I feel a strange Muse entering my office.  Like a sobering calm has entered the room, and I long for spontaneity and laughter to overtake the moment.  But these moments have value in that they embolden me with the rootstock courage to be spontaneous, to take risks, to take the chance of making a mistake, “to do that which [I] think [I] cannot.”  I want to be wildly unhindered by a lack of regret.  I have been accused of being foolhardy and goofy.  Ditzy and capricious.  Irresponsible and risky.  Maybe these adjectives are the encouragement that I need to tell me that I am on the right track, and I don’t even know it.

Today . . . I am going to do something that scares me.  I am familiar with my fears . . . one of them being the fear of failure.  The fear that I won’t have enough time in my life to do all that I hope to do.  The fear of not having tried to accomplish that one dream within.  The fear of feeling regret at the end of my life.  Do I live this way?  I try not to . . . still, these little nagging doubts linger on occasion.  Eleanor believes that we “gain strength, and courage, and confidence” by trying to do something that we cannot do.  It is time to shake things up, go forth, and do something a little scary.   toaster oven

 

 

 

 

 

 

Tell them you love them.

/ Kennedy Farr / Leave a comment

 

 

Quotation-Lao-Tzu-life-strength-love-wisdom-courage-inspiration-Meetville-Quotes-278934I have a bumper sticker in my shower that reads: Being deeply loved gives you strength.  Loving someone deeply gives you courage.  — Lao Tzu

anais-nin-quote4. love and courage

 

Anais Nin wrote: Life shrinks or expands in proportion to one’s courage.

I teach Logic and Philosophy.  I look for both bold and  hidden connections within words, sentiments, and images.  When I read these two messages, I see a clear pattern.  If loving someone gives you courage . . . and life shrinks or expands in proportion to one’s courage . . . and I want my life to expand (not shrink) . . . then I want to love more.  And then some more.  And even some more.  My life expands in proportion to being courageous and loving more.

I recognize that this is not the wisdom of the ages I am launching here.  This connection of courage and love and expansion has been written about, sung about, painted about, danced about, and spoken about since the beginning of time.  What does feel significant about this are those moments in the day when I feel this connection and I take action as a result of this awareness.  It feels so great to just say it: I love you.  So much.

One more great quote: “Whatever you do, don’t let another moment pass without telling the people who are important to you that they are loved. You never know when it will be the last thing they hear.” — Hayley Hobson

Very incentivize-ing.  Today, like every single day I have left on the planet, is the time for me to say it: You are loved.  I love you.