Three things I like Thursday

My jaw has been hurting lately, bringing the first stanza of this poem to mind:

But now that I am used to pain,
Its knuckles in my mouth the same
Today as yesterday, the cause
As clear-obscure as who's to blame,

A fascination with the flaws
Sets in - the plundered heart, the pause
Between those earnest, oversold
Liberties that took like laws.

What should have been I never told,
Afraid of outbursts, you withhold.
Why are desires something to share?
I'm shivering though it isn't cold.

Beneath your window, I stand and stare.
The planets turn. The trees are bare.
I'll toss a pebble at the pane,
But softly, knowing you are not there.
- J.D. McClatchy, Pibroch

I also really like this song and the stories on this website.

Tomorrow, December 1, 2007, is World AIDS Day. If you go here, you can listen to Thembi, a South African woman who is living with AIDS.

Well worth the read

I don't have much to say today.

Please check out Russell Shorto's amazing May, 2006 piece in the New York Times, "Contra-Contraceptives." It's long, but that's because it's packed with really interesting information, so I suggest you read the whole thing. Shorto examines anti-choice groups' stance on contraceptives and makes the case that they are really struggling to make all sex marital and for procreation purposes.

Fit to print

I am having one of those days where I am feeling a little helpless. I have a lot of compassion and energy, but I don't really know what to do with it all the time. I do several of the obvious things to help out (donate, volunteer, try to spread the word), but there are some days when I just feel like a hamster on the wheel.

There are several issues going on right now that I have been following. I don't write about some things because I do not feel qualified (yet) to speak about them, but here are some of the things I have been reading about lately:

1. On Feministe, Jill reminds us that the genocide in Dafur is still happening.
2. At Bitch, Ph.D., the doctor fills us in on the protest in Burma.
3. At Majikthise, Lindsey highlights the disturbing report recently released about Blackwater's activities in Iraq.
4. NPR continues its coverage of people in poverty in Iraq.

On a lighter note, I want to post about a couple of comments I have received, because I know not everyone clicks on the comments to see what people have said. Sean Tubbs commented on my post "Moo" to let me know about the Charlottesville Podcasting Network and one of their pieces on local food. I've really been enjoying their "Voice of Poverty" podcasts.

Also John let me know that Better than Television is alive and well in Charlottesville. They are bringing us Head-Roc War Machine this Friday at the Bridge as part of the Columbus Day Symposium.

For all you Lovers out there

Today I went to the Charlottesville Vegetarian Festival. While there I stopped by the Food Not Bombs' table and picked up some of their materials and signed up to be called to help out. The Charlottesville Food Not Bombs' group serves vegetarian/vegan meals to people in need of food at Tonlser Park at 1pm on Sundays. I have wanted to get involved with Food Not Bombs (this one will take you to their home page) for awhile. (I remember trying to during the summertimes in Pittsburgh to find a Pittsburgh chapter, but I must not have tried very hard [or they must have recently got things up and running] because a quick search took me to this page.) Anyway, check out the Food Not Bombs links above; the group has had some interesting history.

(Thinking about Food Not Bombs today lead me to search for mention of "Better than Television," in Charlottesville. I don't think they exist anymore. Does anyone know? Anyway, that lead me to Slingshot "a quarterly, independent, radical, newspaper published in the East Bay since 1988 by the Slingshot Collective." [And I take issue with the first person's statement that cervical cancer is easily cured if detected early--what about people who do not have access to annual cervical exams?])

Finally, on two totally unrelated notes, I am in the midst of a cold and had my first nose bleed ever today and I'm reading "Remembrance of Things Past" and thought I would share this passage,

At this time of life one has already been wounded more than once by the darts of love; it no longer evolves by itself, obeying its own incomprehensible and fatal laws, before our passive and astonished hearts. We come to its aid, we falsify it by memory and by suggestion. Recognizing one of its symptoms, we remember and recreate the rest. Since we know its song, which is engraved on our hearts in its entirety, there is no need for a woman to repeat the opening strains---filled with the admiration which beauty inspires---for us to remember what follows.

Moo

Yesterday morning I heard this segment on NPR's Morning Edition about the rising cost of dairy products. As the segment explains, although milk is generally a local product, the price of skim-milk powder, which is used in many products, has risen. Dairy producers may focus on making skim-milk powder, increasing the shortage in milk production (which is already increasing for many reasons as the NPR segment explains). As supplies go down, prices go up.

After hearing this piece, I realized I had no idea where Harris Teeter, one of the local grocery stores, gets its milk. A quick google search didn't get me any closer to finding out, but I did run into Majesty Farm's Cow and Goat Share Program. As the link explains, the cow and goat share program allows people to buy "stock" in a goat or cow; the price of the stock includes the farm boarding and feeding your animal, regular vet visits, daily milking, and 1 gallon of milk a week per "cow share" or 3 quarts for a "goat share." The program allows people to get around laws prohibiting buying and selling raw milk (it's not illegal to own/drink milk from animal you own). It's too expensive for me, but I thought it was an interesting idea worth sharing.

Also, if you're like me, you may have run out of This American Life episodes to listen to. If so, I highly recommend Radio Lab.

Dr. Csikszentmihalyi and Flow

I was listening to This American Life this morning and one of the contributors mentioned Dr. Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi and the concept of "flow."

Here's how Csikszentmihalyi describes flow in the interview linked above,

In the early seventies, I spoke with chess players, rock climbers, musicians, and inner-city basketball players, asking them to describe their experience when what they were doing was really going well. I really expected quite different stories to emerge. But the interviews seemed in many important ways to focus on the same quality of the experience. For instance, the fact that you were completely immersed in what you were doing, that the concentration was very high, that you knew what you had to do moment by moment, that you had very quick and precise feedback as to how well you were doing, and that you felt that your abilities were stretched but not overwhelmed by the opportunities for action. In other words, the challenges were in balance with the skills. And when those conditions were present, you began to forget all the things that bothered you in everyday life, forget the self as an entity separate from what was going on—you felt you were a part of something greater and you were just moving along with the logic of the activity.

Everyone said that it was like being carried by a current, spontaneous, effortless like a flow. You also forget time and are not afraid of being out of control. You think you can control the situation if you need to. But it's hard because the challenges are hard. It feels effortless and yet it's extremely dependent on concentration and skill. So it's a paradoxical kind of condition where you feel that you are on a nice edge, between anxiety on the one hand and boredom on the other. You're just operating on this fine line where you can barely do what needs to be done.

The entire interview is very interesting. I'm not sure I agree with/understand how he is using the term "evolution," but it's still interesting.

I have definitely experienced flow a few times in my life; during cross-country races in high school, when first learning to be a compositor at work, occasionally while writing, and often while reading a challenging book. I also think I attempt to create the conditions for flow, while doing boring tasks that must be done by creating games to challenge myself (like how many lines of data-entry can I get through in an hour...bleh.), but this doesn't usually work.

I think, though, this is what we mean when we say that someone loves their work. We mean that they are able to enter into "flow" while working.

When do you feel as if you are in "flow"?

Later in the interview, Csikszentmihalyi says,

We are born with certain instructions to act, and then we are told by the culture how to act. And while we have to honor the reality of these things, at the same time, we have to reflect on the implications that carrying out these instructions would have.

There is the Hindu notion of karma, which should also be translated in modern terms, because it's true that everything you do, in a sense, has an impact on everything else. We are part of a system, and if we act in a certain way, it doesn't stop there. It will have an effect both now and through time. It will have an effect. So once you realize both that you're part of a system and that you are all these instructions, then you recognize that you have the responsibility of either endorsing all these instructions or trying to break out from them.

I really like the challenge in this quote; recognizing the reality of things, but at the same time seeing you have an active choice within that reality to continue as before or to reject your set of "instructions" in whatever way you can.