drwex | Sep. 18th, 2018

You become a true master of your life when you learn how to master your focus—where your attention goes. Value what you give your energy to. Rise above the pettiness trying to draw you in. Focus on what matters. Where attention goes, energy flows. Where energy flows, things grow.

What truly DOES matter to you most right now?

I think I'm mostly in alignment with this idea, except that I object to the use of the term "pettiness". That which is not worth my time is not necessarily "petty" in an absolute sense - it just has less value to me.

Long ago I was searching for a way to manage my anger issues. By dumb luck I hit upon aikido as a physical art. I've never done well with still meditation - for me, moving meditations have worked better. Aikido was a blessing I didn't know I needed. Seidokan (https://www.seidokanaikido.org/) is a branch of the art that tries to take old traditions and teachings and adapt them to current contexts. Its motto is "earnest, sincere, and realistic". In today's terms I would say "authentic" as a good synonym for "sincere". I might also say "purposeful" as a complementary term to "earnest". Do things because you mean them, do them in an authentic way, and be realistic about what you are doing.

Aikido teaches that mind and body need to move, focus, and act in harmony. When you do this, you find things are smoother, easier, less full of struggle. Aikido is what's sometimes called a "circular" art and analogized with water, which flows around obstacles or wears them away rather than bashing through them. Not a natural way of thinking for me when I started and still a thing I forget. The opposite of this flow isn't "petty", though. It's "unfocused" or "distracted" or "inattentive" or maybe even "inauthentic". I found that being unfocused and (what I today would call) inauthentic back then increased my anger. Being earnest, sincere, and realistic reduced my anger a lot. To be honest, I still don't know _why_ that was so, but it was and still is.

These days I'm having a lot of problems with being distracted/distractable. I think some of it is hangover from not nearly enough sleep. Some of it is that being partially disabled this summer kept me operating in low gear and my brain is now constantly spun up to high gear trying to make up for that. And part of it is... I dunno. What matters to me most right now is, I think, re-finding my mental equilibrium. Returning to the dynamic balance (moving, remember) that I think of as my best state.

Tonight is erev Yom Kippur. May you each find your best state of living for the coming year.