Prison Pete
Wednesday, October 19, 2005
Kindling.
I have gotten a little better at taking care of myself. By that I mean if I am feeling down, I have resources to lift my spirits. The one aspect I am having trouble with at this point is when a particular activity does not produce the result I was hoping for. Under that condition, I need to be able to totally switch tracks and take up an entirely different activity to bring my self back out of the low point.
For example when I decide to try and relax and watch one of the movies that they show here on weekends. Sometimes the movies not only fail to entertain me, but add yet another level of sadness to fight through. This sadness is nothing that I can not dig my way out of but as my post a few days back clearly states I may just put it off. I am too often willing to accept the sadness and not expend the effort I know is needed to pick myself back up and rise above the funk.
I am serious about not waiting for a letter or blog comment to come through and say poor Pete, he is feeling blue. The truth I know is that without the blues there is not up times. I do have good days. True they are not everyday, I am in prison after all, but I want to be able to continue to be my own internal skills at spirit lifting.
This is not to say that I do not need others. I do and appreciate all blog comments and the snail mail I do get. I want to be able to use those resources as kindling to start my own fires of inspiration and spirit lifting. In the past it was more likely that I was depending on others not only to be the kindling, but they had better have the matches and logs to keep the fire going.
The cool part about kindling is that it takes up very little room; I can store it for when the fires of life are all but burned out, and thus will hopefully never be without it.
One of the recurrent problems I have is the built in delay of this blog and. letter writing in general. Yes it is a system that has existed for ages, but now that people have gotten used to the idea of being able to get instant answers to questions, waiting for weeks to send letters back and forth seems positively barbaric.
This is what I mean by saving up kindling. If I can reach out when my fires are burned out and pick up a tidbit received earlier but not needed at that time, life would be pretty good.
If this makes any sense, maybe you could drop off some kindling as a blog comment from time to time. I promise to do my part and not waste them. I will keep the fire going on my own as much as possible and not spend days in the old funk
I have so frequently written about waiting for an entire bonfire to come along and rescue me.
For example when I decide to try and relax and watch one of the movies that they show here on weekends. Sometimes the movies not only fail to entertain me, but add yet another level of sadness to fight through. This sadness is nothing that I can not dig my way out of but as my post a few days back clearly states I may just put it off. I am too often willing to accept the sadness and not expend the effort I know is needed to pick myself back up and rise above the funk.
I am serious about not waiting for a letter or blog comment to come through and say poor Pete, he is feeling blue. The truth I know is that without the blues there is not up times. I do have good days. True they are not everyday, I am in prison after all, but I want to be able to continue to be my own internal skills at spirit lifting.
This is not to say that I do not need others. I do and appreciate all blog comments and the snail mail I do get. I want to be able to use those resources as kindling to start my own fires of inspiration and spirit lifting. In the past it was more likely that I was depending on others not only to be the kindling, but they had better have the matches and logs to keep the fire going.
The cool part about kindling is that it takes up very little room; I can store it for when the fires of life are all but burned out, and thus will hopefully never be without it.
One of the recurrent problems I have is the built in delay of this blog and. letter writing in general. Yes it is a system that has existed for ages, but now that people have gotten used to the idea of being able to get instant answers to questions, waiting for weeks to send letters back and forth seems positively barbaric.
This is what I mean by saving up kindling. If I can reach out when my fires are burned out and pick up a tidbit received earlier but not needed at that time, life would be pretty good.
If this makes any sense, maybe you could drop off some kindling as a blog comment from time to time. I promise to do my part and not waste them. I will keep the fire going on my own as much as possible and not spend days in the old funk
I have so frequently written about waiting for an entire bonfire to come along and rescue me.
Comments:
Nice to know the comments are on and up for business. I started reading last spring, and they were off for a bit. I thought about getting on the list to send you snail mail, but worried I'd fizzle out like some of your other pen pals. So maybe I'll try comments for awhile to see how I do with that. Then we'll see.
At least I know they'll be read if not appreciated.
One thing I'll say is that while I enjoy reading your day-to-day routine, you seem to lack a central theme in your writing. IOW, are you exploring your past? Contemplating the future? Musing about current events? I see elements of all of these but the lack of a central focus will make your material much more difficult to put into a book or novel if that is what you're thinking. Hopefully this makes sense.
D.
At least I know they'll be read if not appreciated.
One thing I'll say is that while I enjoy reading your day-to-day routine, you seem to lack a central theme in your writing. IOW, are you exploring your past? Contemplating the future? Musing about current events? I see elements of all of these but the lack of a central focus will make your material much more difficult to put into a book or novel if that is what you're thinking. Hopefully this makes sense.
D.
I laughed when I read about the built in delay in your communications and that we are so use to instant responses now. I have a friend that I email a lot. I ask questions, that are never answered and I keep asking and asking until they are. It's not as instant as you make think! Haha!
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