I recently read Kleptopia by Tom Burgis. While being primarily about the corruption of the financial elite in Kazakhstan, it reached into Africa, London, Moscow, and ever so briefly into the United States including a surprisingly tiny Trump cameo appearance.
I was left with the impression that the safeguards in the financial world, to detect ill-gotten capital and prevent it from gaining legitimacy, are completely ineffective. Further any time a motivated crusader tries to provide effective oversight into corrupt practices, they are very quickly fired, or worse.
When I started reading this book, I wasn’t aware it was so focussed on Kazakhstan. It is a country I know very little about, however it has always been my metaphorical place I could go with my bike and just hide from the world. I’m not yet sure if learning about the corruption of its leaders has removed some of the shine this country has had for me.
Perhaps money can not buy happiness, but if you’re an oligarch, it appears to be able to buy pretty well everything else.
I quite enjoy taking photos of flowers. In the beginning, I was using extension tubes on a film SLR, to take extreme closeups. (self reminder to digitize some of my early macro photos.)
These days, I’m much less ambitious, but I’m still always on the lookout for beautiful light falling on interesting colourful flowers. Irises are my favourite flowers, so I’m enjoying the fact that we are currently smack dab in the middle of Iris season.
Here are a couple of Iris photos I took today.
Siberian Irises in our backyardIrises beside the Arbutus Greenway
I’ve recently become interested in my great grandmother. Grandma Deas was my mom’s dad’s mother. Her and I only overlapped briefly on this planet, she died when I was three. I don’t have any memories of her, but according to my mom I spent a fair bit of time with Grandma Deas.
Starting out, I’m a bit overwhelmed by all the aspects of her life that I’d like to write about:
the general arc of her life
the house in West Vancouver where she lived for 40 plus years
her siblings
her various stages of motherhood
For now, I think I’m going to start with Hydrangeas. My mom has a thriving Hydrangea behind her house. She recently told me that it came from a cutting from Grandma Deas’ garden. I’ve made a couple of attempts at starting some cuttings, but so far no success. Perhaps third time’s the charm!
While I’ve been disappointed at my failed attempts at transplanting this hydrangea, I’m looking forward to the day when I’ll be able to look out in my backyard and see a plant that is a direct descendent something that was grown and tended by my great grandmother.
Insert catchy sign-off phrase here!
Catherine Deas, with Jack (on the left) and Jeannie (on her lap)
I’ve dabbled in meditation over the past few years. While I feel embarrassed to admit it, I enjoy meditating. I started by reading a book called Mindfulness by Mark Williams that I’m still using. Recently, I’ve also enjoying using an app called Balance.
I get the sense that meditation can be very complex topic, however the essence of it is to try to sit still and keep your brain quiet. I don’t think the goal is to actually have your brain be quiet (“woohoo, my brain is quiet, I just qualified for the meditation Olympics!”) I see the goal of meditation as the never ending process of noticing that your brain is not being quiet, and acknowledging your current thought, and go back to just noticing… your breath, or the tingling in your foot, or the gurgling in your stomach, or… (“oh, I need to buy apples today. I wonder if I can get the car in for an oil change this week.”) And so it goes…
I think most people’s brains are very persistent in this regard. They can offer up all kinds of tempting things for you to think about. The trick is to not get mad or frustrated, but instead, just recognize it all as thoughts, and go back to noticing your breath.
To that point, there are a number of techniques you help you focus on your breath. A common technique is to count your breaths. Some people suggest noticing where in your body you feel your breath. Others suggest labelling your breath with something like “Breath coming in”, “Breath going out.” I enjoy hopping around among these techniques.
Recently, while I was labelling my breath ‘in’ and ‘out’ I tried switching the labels, so as my lungs filled up, I was thinking ‘out’. As the air was being pushed out of my lungs, I was thinking ‘in.’
I started doing this, as a silly game. I’m not entirely sure the serious mindfulness crowd would approve of this, but I was enjoying it. I have reached a point where it feels natural to be thinking ‘in’ as I breathe out, and vice versa.
At one point while I was doing this reverse labelling, I started imagining (sorry, this even sounds flaky to me!) I could turn myself inside out. Instead of my consciousness occupying my body, it was instead occupying everything outside my body. From this perspective when air was leaving the universe and going into my body, it was as if the universe was breathing out. When air was being pushed out of my body, it was actually being received by the universe. In.
What started as a playful game in my monkey mind ended up showing me a different way to visualize my breath and my place in the universe.
It all reminds me of a great (and recent) xkcd comic.
Two years ago, approximately, I was browsing drawing and sketching books at the lib. I picked up and checked out one that described a form of doodling called zentangles. I started following the exercises in the book. It was one part ceremony. (eg. it suggested you should feel gratitude for the paper, and your pens and pencils), one part rigorous rules, and one part ‘go with the flow’.
So far the ceremony parts haven’t really stuck, however, I really enjoy the balance between ‘go with the flow’ and process. It seems to have the right amount of random for me. I have recently found the discipline to do them on a regular basis. I’m not prepared to say they are meditative, however I do quite enjoy the ritual of them.
I’m in the process of starting, learning how to make a word press website. This would be to scratch a few itches. First and most likely foremost, I want a place where I can keep links for apps that I’m making. A close second, I just want to understand what it means to build a WordPress website. I go through the world and assume everybody who codes knows how to make a WordPress website. That may not be true, but I certainly feel vulnerable and exposed not being WP illiterate.
I do feel like I’ve reached the point where I could at least have cocktail party discussion about the pieces and the architecture.
One thing I had not considered is blogging. Over the years, I have used blogs to capture family events. I have also dabbled with writing posts about technical issues. I have also used a keyboard to do diary type writing.
It turns out (who knew?) WordPress is first and foremost a platform to support blogging web sites. I’m pretty sure it’s possible to turn off blog support, but that feels like ordering a hamburger, and asking your server to not include a patty.
All that do say, how do I feel about blogging? My first thought is something along the lines of: SELF INDULGENT! (Images of Larry Mullen Jr. dance through my head)
But competing with that another quote:
The arts are not a way to make a living. They are a very human way of making life more bearable. Practicing an art, no matter how well or badly, is a way to make your soul grow, for heaven’s sake. Sing in the shower. Dance to the radio. Tell stories. Write a poem to a friend, even a lousy poem. Do it as well as you possibly can. You will get an enormous reward. You will have created something.
Kurt Vonnegut
So for the time being, I’m going to imagine myself a blogger. A hacky, rambling blogger, to be sure, but a blogger none-the-less.
