January 3, 2011

There is a little tug-o’-war going on in me these days. The “I don’t wanna’s” are pretty strong – I don’t wanna:
- fundraise
- have a support circle
- cut down on gluten and drink more fluids – not caffeinated ones at that
- invite people to the Completion Evening of Wisdom
- catch up on e-mail
- set up paying gigs for February and March
- get my eyes checked
- etc.

I DO wanna too, and generally I am doing a little better than 50% which is the level I was at for years.

Why the ambivalence? Well, besides not wanting to “stick out” I realized as I was waking up this morning that I have been reluctant to be honest and open about my life-long sense, strong and clear since I was twelve, that I have a personal relationship with God and that God has given me a mission – to create Inclusion, especially so that people who don’t speak can be seen and supported as contributors to society.

But this is a fact for me – one that has shaped all my life. Still I cannot imagine saying in public, or in front of my circle, certainly not frequently and bravely: “Got wants this and I want to do it!”

This reluctance to sound like a religious weirdo constantly gives strength to the “I don’t wanna’s”. It’s better to not stick out, but rather to look like I’m motivated by good thinking and research, to seem like I just want the same things as most people.

But probably I am not fooling anybody anyway. Clearly I DON’T want the same things as most people!

Being at the Terracotta Warriors exhibit last Friday reinforced deeply for me the realization that most people do not know that there is an alternative path to peace besides war. The visible evidence was impactful - that fighting for a stable society and community with abundance and opportunity for all is a way of every culture that goes back multiple millennia. It was also powerfully clear that this way is wasteful, bloody and ineffective.

The other clear message was that history takes no account of the needs, desires or contributions of ordinary people. They live and die hearing that their sole contribution to peace on earth is to support war, up to losing the lives of loved ones and themselves.

I have another way. It takes many ordinary people to build and sustain Inclusion. The good news is that when they do so they also build abundant economy and community, and eliminate the fear and inadequacy that lead to war.

Can I gather enough courage, faith, people and resources to get the message across so that all ordinary people know they have a choice and they know how to implement that choice?

December 16, 2010

Sunday, Wednesday and tonight I spent considerable time with a child. It makes me appreciate SO much that I don’t have one.

He likes me, though, and I like him. Regardless I’m not set up for it in my living space or psychologically. It gives me new understanding why other people who use personal assistance have worked hard to create a particular type of support to help them raise children. Without that it’s a real challenge to get the kid to keep his sticky fingers off the keyboard while his incompatible “educational” game is threatening to melt down my operating system.

It seems like I have spent a lot of time and energy lately trying to reassert control – “my boundaries” as they say now. I noticed recently that I have greatly increased my patrolling – frequent trips through the apartment to ensure that things have been put away where they belong, room has been left on the floor to permit free passage of my wheelchair, Peter’s stuff is in Peter’s spaces, table tops are cleared of things whose purpose is incompatible with the function of the table – even regularly counting what’s left of the eggs, toilet paper rolls, tissue boxes, etc. In such ways I have become my Mother.

Part of this is because with Peter here, four other personal assistants coming weekly, a great deal of WPIT and Laser Eagles planning going on in the space and now intentionally offering hospitality to neighbours – including an eleven year old boy – everyone’s needs for safety, storage, secure work space, etc. must be met. Those needs may exist for an hour or for months. Once again, I have gotten fairly good at understanding and accommodating the requirements of my assistants. Adding a housemate and a half-a-dozen neighbours created a different dynamic that invites stress and chaos.

Another factor behind my increased control freakiness belongs squarely to the “Third Cycle”. Since it’s clear that I will live and I have a passion to get back in the game of inclusion, I must vastly increase my resources. I have about a $15,000/year shortfall in paying my personal assistants. I have large living costs. Lots of things cost double because of been accompanied – bus fare, meals, hotel rooms, rent. Most importantly the research and project development needs for WPIT will be/are significant.

I used to be very good at making money, especially when Marsha was around to remind me to keep at it and to promote me. Then I got slack. As the end of Cycle 2 crept up on me I grew content to live the life of a very poor person,

But Cycle 3 is now very much underway and I must leave the ODSP world soon – perhaps February. My intentions are set on a functioning Judith Snow/World Peace through Inclusion Foundation with assets not less than $6 million by the end of 2011!

I am learning again how to make money. I am getting coaching. I am seeing how I got stuck in lots of side tracks, from not wanting to lose my connection with vulnerable people to enjoying hanging out with the stories of how hard it is and in enjoying too much the dreaming of what we could do next.

What works is to take the action that reliably brings in the money. I set a goal of making $500 a day, five days a week. Yesterday I made $550. Today I made $100. Tomorrow I will make $500.

The Last Day of November 2010

In my experience it is not good to rush some creative moments. There are at least two aspects of this. The first is that I can get my mind set that a certain set of circumstances are going to be the context for the work only to have someone change something fundamental – the budget, timeline, venu, etc. With so many players in the piece at the ROM I sense that this is about 100% likely to happen in the next few days.

Secondly and most significantly, listening to that other space is essential – the space beyond my personal mind where better answers to good questions come from. A few “sleeps” improves the quality of what I’m up to immeasurably.

So I am quite the procrastinator in some areas of my life – like in producing a creative brief for the May exhibit. I do know that I must produce a good draft on Monday or risk putting the whole show in jeopardy.

I was whimsically considering how my mind distracts me when this invisible process is unfolding. There are numbers – counting things. For example, I noticed many days ago that these writings go from page 1 to page 2 somewhere around lines 44 to 46. So I will look down occasionally (like now!), see that I am at line 20 and calculate that I’m about 48% of the way to being able to call this a two page document. If I’m not too excited about what I’m writing I do more calculations – go figure (joke!)

Then there are a growing variety of computer games that I can play using my Morse Code interface. Freecell is my stand-by since I stop using a Mac (traitor!) a few years back. Macs have a built in jigsaw puzzle program where you can insert one of your own photos or drawings. I miss that distraction in a big way.

Recently I was introduced to Farmville on Facebook. That promises to be a very effective tool of distraction! A player even gets ribbons for ever higher levels of time wasting behaviour.

I used to be an avid builder of Sim Cities. When I built my first one I sat for 5 hours straight thinking I had been at it for maybe 1 ½. No wonder my aging butt hurts so much! The Windows Vista OS doesn’t run Sim programs, much to my despair. Just what was the point of Vista anyway? Last week Nick introduced me to a program called Virtual Computer that partitions part of the hard drive and allows the owner to use an older Windows OS. I have downloaded Sim Towers, but not yet actually used it. Farmville!

I do not have a TV as I consider the whole thing to be designed to make one stupid. Nevertheless, Nick eagerly downloads episodes of House for me. One show lasts just as long as his evening break. It is to our mutual advantage that I have become rather interested in this melodramatic hospital show.

And the most effective tool of procrastination of all is to do something else that I have been meaning to get around to but: “haven’t had the time”. Just as some suddenly discover a closet that NEEDS reorganizing the day before a big exam, I have a storehouse of old e-mails and other writings that can easily become suddenly urgent and take up a couple of hours of creative space.

This is line 5 on page 2! Good night!