I Want Community aka
Postpartum Depression
February 21, 2019
Phoenix
Good grief, it's raining like nobody's business here in Phoenix for what seems like the seventh straight day. And when it isn't raining, it's cold AF. I thought this would be a weeks-long respite from the "grisly" cold of Los Angeles' winter (low 60s). This has turned out to be some kind of Noah's Ark/Polar Vortex and has cast my opinion of Phoenix into a whole other light. Apparently, sometimes winter is pretty much inescapable. I am sipping on a delicious Blonde Roast at a local Starbucks, enjoying the flavor, but besieged by the physical restlessness light roast nurtures and the emotional restlessness produced by relentless rain. How does Winter/winter do it?
I am on the other side of the Phoenix Scrabble tournament, it was last Saturday-Sunday-Monday. For several days I was among my peers, my community, the people I care about most. It feels affirming to be around those who you care about, who care about you. Those who you know and who know you. Those who are both affectionate and engaging and who want to spend time with you. Sadly, the time was fleeting. It can be conflicting Yes, I love Scrabble but I also want to just hang with everybody. I want to talk and I want to play. However, if it weren't for Scrabble, nobody would be here. Before you know it's over and everyone has moved on! COME BACK!!!!!!!!
In so many of the communities I have been in, the realization hits me. We come together for a finite and intense period of time. We do our thing, and then we scatter again. It feels intensely intimate for a moment, and then we scatter apart again. Is it unrealistic to want/have that intensity all the time? To be "in community?" I don't really know if I know what that experience would feel like. Perhaps it would become just as mundane as the life I already lead, and my desire for a potentially inequitable amount of solitude may still preclude my belonging. Sometimes (for those who can afford it) we can re-engage quickly, it can be just a few weeks later, for others a few months, for others same time next year. To be honest, it is all-to-long for me. I think one of the appeals of the "Hundred Games Tournament" in Santa Fe in August is that I can sustain this sense of community for 9 long days! Secretly, if it were up to me, I would want to sustain some semblance of community intentionally ALL THE TIME. I am just not sure how to go about that. I wanna be where everybody knows my name.
I love reading about co-housing communities in Sweden and wonder what it would be like to live in one. https://www.thelocal.se/20110223/32214
I was talking to my Scrabble friend Aditya Kini last weekend about the difference between societies. Originally from Bangalore, India, he categorized American society as very individualistic. His theory was that we tend to do be more "inward facing", more about ourselves and less about our families and communities. We tend to be focused on making money, feathering our nests and there is an overt emphasis on our immediate family, partnership. I don't think it is a matter of whether that is good or bad, it just is. We spend an awful lot of time alone, or with our partners (if we have them), but our wider circles tend to be more limited. I think I understand this and there are pros and cons to the way our society functions versus others. And when it boils down to reality, it's hard to know if I would really want to be "around" others all the time. I value my solitude as a time to regenerate? Or is that the depression talking? I often can't tell.
Lately I have been thinking a lot about Myers-Briggs, a Jungian-inspired personality profile indicator that, just by asking a series of questions, gives you one of 16 four-lettered personality "profiles". It's helpful in the sense that it gives you insight into who you are, what your strengths and weaknesses are. The fact that I am mostly an INFP (Mediator) offers me comfort because it brands me as a caring, compassionate non-judgmental individual. That I also cross over to ENFP (Campaigner) from time to time fills me with the glee/adrenaline rush of what leadership feels like (much scarier and certainly more energetic). The comparisons between the two are the somewhat irrational way these two personalities come to the conclusions of what to do in life, often intuitively and without logic can be challenging. I am not sure what I can do with this information. I have given myself a couple of weeks to plot a course forward. I intensely feel like I want to burst forward in a new direction, tear off the shackles of my old self and run towards new challenges. However, I have really earned a living only one way my entire career, and anything new will be fraught with anxiety and could take me away from my overt desire to play play play. Not rational, but very INFP of me!
I actually sent a note to Jean McCarthur about the Scrabble tournament in Austin week of March 9. (as if the Scrabble tournament in Newport Beach the weekend prior won't be enough). I saw that the Ansells were signed up (considering petitions to be Zach's much older brother) and saw a division break favorable to domination. Also noticed that it is 1,350 miles away, which just seems crazy. Sadly, I'm a little crazy. And intent on scratching an itch, that won't stay unitchy.
Postpartum Depression
February 21, 2019
Phoenix
Good grief, it's raining like nobody's business here in Phoenix for what seems like the seventh straight day. And when it isn't raining, it's cold AF. I thought this would be a weeks-long respite from the "grisly" cold of Los Angeles' winter (low 60s). This has turned out to be some kind of Noah's Ark/Polar Vortex and has cast my opinion of Phoenix into a whole other light. Apparently, sometimes winter is pretty much inescapable. I am sipping on a delicious Blonde Roast at a local Starbucks, enjoying the flavor, but besieged by the physical restlessness light roast nurtures and the emotional restlessness produced by relentless rain. How does Winter/winter do it?
I am on the other side of the Phoenix Scrabble tournament, it was last Saturday-Sunday-Monday. For several days I was among my peers, my community, the people I care about most. It feels affirming to be around those who you care about, who care about you. Those who you know and who know you. Those who are both affectionate and engaging and who want to spend time with you. Sadly, the time was fleeting. It can be conflicting Yes, I love Scrabble but I also want to just hang with everybody. I want to talk and I want to play. However, if it weren't for Scrabble, nobody would be here. Before you know it's over and everyone has moved on! COME BACK!!!!!!!!
In so many of the communities I have been in, the realization hits me. We come together for a finite and intense period of time. We do our thing, and then we scatter again. It feels intensely intimate for a moment, and then we scatter apart again. Is it unrealistic to want/have that intensity all the time? To be "in community?" I don't really know if I know what that experience would feel like. Perhaps it would become just as mundane as the life I already lead, and my desire for a potentially inequitable amount of solitude may still preclude my belonging. Sometimes (for those who can afford it) we can re-engage quickly, it can be just a few weeks later, for others a few months, for others same time next year. To be honest, it is all-to-long for me. I think one of the appeals of the "Hundred Games Tournament" in Santa Fe in August is that I can sustain this sense of community for 9 long days! Secretly, if it were up to me, I would want to sustain some semblance of community intentionally ALL THE TIME. I am just not sure how to go about that. I wanna be where everybody knows my name.
I love reading about co-housing communities in Sweden and wonder what it would be like to live in one. https://www.thelocal.se/20110223/32214
I was talking to my Scrabble friend Aditya Kini last weekend about the difference between societies. Originally from Bangalore, India, he categorized American society as very individualistic. His theory was that we tend to do be more "inward facing", more about ourselves and less about our families and communities. We tend to be focused on making money, feathering our nests and there is an overt emphasis on our immediate family, partnership. I don't think it is a matter of whether that is good or bad, it just is. We spend an awful lot of time alone, or with our partners (if we have them), but our wider circles tend to be more limited. I think I understand this and there are pros and cons to the way our society functions versus others. And when it boils down to reality, it's hard to know if I would really want to be "around" others all the time. I value my solitude as a time to regenerate? Or is that the depression talking? I often can't tell.
Lately I have been thinking a lot about Myers-Briggs, a Jungian-inspired personality profile indicator that, just by asking a series of questions, gives you one of 16 four-lettered personality "profiles". It's helpful in the sense that it gives you insight into who you are, what your strengths and weaknesses are. The fact that I am mostly an INFP (Mediator) offers me comfort because it brands me as a caring, compassionate non-judgmental individual. That I also cross over to ENFP (Campaigner) from time to time fills me with the glee/adrenaline rush of what leadership feels like (much scarier and certainly more energetic). The comparisons between the two are the somewhat irrational way these two personalities come to the conclusions of what to do in life, often intuitively and without logic can be challenging. I am not sure what I can do with this information. I have given myself a couple of weeks to plot a course forward. I intensely feel like I want to burst forward in a new direction, tear off the shackles of my old self and run towards new challenges. However, I have really earned a living only one way my entire career, and anything new will be fraught with anxiety and could take me away from my overt desire to play play play. Not rational, but very INFP of me!
I actually sent a note to Jean McCarthur about the Scrabble tournament in Austin week of March 9. (as if the Scrabble tournament in Newport Beach the weekend prior won't be enough). I saw that the Ansells were signed up (considering petitions to be Zach's much older brother) and saw a division break favorable to domination. Also noticed that it is 1,350 miles away, which just seems crazy. Sadly, I'm a little crazy. And intent on scratching an itch, that won't stay unitchy.
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