Balance + The Fish

Assumption: Resolutions are only for New Year's.

Note: I'm republishing an article that I wrote a year ago, "Balance Is Not A Fish That You Can Catch", on my original blog. It was actually the article before the post/idea for Demystify... interesting how life's river meanders. I rediscovered it a month ago + found it be to a relevant lesson that I'm still learning. My updates + best-practices from a year's worth of trials + errors follow the article. Enjoy:)
 
Balance is something we hear much about, particularly this time of year. Take a quick look at themes around the blogosphere + you'll find 'balance' often as either the main subject of a New Year's Resolution article or as an idea sprinkled throughout one.

While there is certainly much ado about it, balance is a concept that is difficult to find, if not impossible to acquire.

Balance is particularly elusive in our culture. We place a high value on activity, have positive associations about it + make personal judgments from it. We make 'activity' an extreme -- the arch nemesis of balance.

Making peace with xmas

Assumption:

For just 60 credits, this can be your fam xmas card stock photo.

After 29 dreadful experiences with this festivus season, I've finally made peace with xmas.

Why is this "the most [dreadful] time of the year"? Because, the 'candid' portrait of my family doesn't look anything like this stock photo. Nor does my xmas look or sound anything like the picture-perfect, opulent images + joy-filled songs I am bombarded with everywhere I look + everywhere I go for three+ months leading up to this wretched day. Thanks for ruining everything good + nice, Advertising + Retail. And, Burl Ives, knock it off... seriously.

Demystify: New, Improved + Taking Over

I'm hip to what all the cool cats are into... well, I'm trying to keep up anyway. It's funny how 'old' one can become in just a few years time in this racing age of technology.

First, I must make a brief mention of the design updates. I'm sure you can see for yourself as this site has undergone a bit of an overhaul. Now, everything is unified -- Fb, Twitter, this website + my new biz cards, which are coming in the mail this week. EEEEeeee!

A Moment of Silence

Assumption: "Never again!"

Most of the time, assumptions are unspoken, subtle, puppet-masters pulling our strings from behind the scenes of consciousness. Sometimes, assumptions are the bold declarations that we shout from the rooftops.

'Never again' is of the latter for me. One that I've proclaimed many times after each episode of depression. One that makes Future Me want to go back + squeeze Past Me's cute little cheeks for professing such a painfully naive 'victory'.

Triumphant, the Phoenix rises yet again

Respresentative of my pre-design career creations, Tree of Fire is a black posterboard cut
on red posterboard, digitally enhanced, c. 2000. To see what will hopefully influence the
illustrations on this blog, check highschoolart tag on my Flickr photostream.

[Piggybacking off of yesterday's Recovery is Transformation post, I decided to publish this post that has been sitting patiently in the drafts folder for about a month waiting for me to illustrate it. Alas, the words in my head are demanding their rightful place on the page first. I've come to the resolution that I can illustrate a post at a later point. Pics in my head are awesome, though. I can't wait for you to see them as well as read them. Without further ado...]

A storyline that is developing + will continue to play out in these articles is the disconnect, discord + subsequent distress that is created when unrealistic expectations clash + collide hard with reality.

Understatement of the year: the internal devastation that results is difficult to traverse.

Recovery is Transformation

Assumption: "Just give me something to fix this... Now?!"

See also: "You just need to... take this pill" "... sleep more/less/better" "... eat more/less/better" "... pray more" "... relax" "... stop worrying so much" "... [fill in the blank here with your fave well-meaning yet overly simplistic advice that you've repeatedly received over the years in the aims to magically cure your problem of being anything that diverges from 'the norm']"

Fight the Power with Gratitude

There are plenty of articles out floating around on the web today + plenty of people tweeting about what they are grateful for on this Thanksgiving Day. I think it's fantastic. But, the assumption that I'm challenging today is: Why do we only give thanks on Thanksgiving?

Old Enemies, New Allies

Like the peacocks wandering
the walkways of the zoo
who have twice the autonomy
the giraffes + the tigers do,
saying:"No one can stop me.
No one clips my claws!
Now everyone watch me
scale these outside walls!"

—mewithoutYou, "A Glass Can Only Spill What It Contains"
  
 

We are a generation that rages against all kinds of machines. But, no one can rise against an enemy unknown; especially one that parades around as a fact of life.

You may have noticed the recently added subtitle: a depression-hacker's guide to challenging assumptions + living life uninhibited. I wisely chose 'assumptions' because they are the things we've learned are the 'givens' of life + the 'that's just the way it is'-s.

We've picked up all kinds of assumptions over the years: first through mimicking family, then through messages taught by school, community + society + finally through life experience; assumptions being the conclusions we've drawn to explain all of our successes + failures.

The more years, the more assumptions + the more deeply those assumptions are ingrained. They are both the things we take for granted + the things we assume to be true. Assume being the operative word.

The "Other C" Word

Earlier this year I road-tripped to NYC to for a MOVE Community Conference hosted by To Write Love On Her Arms (TWOLHA). It was an experience like no other for me.

At that two-day conference, we participated in about 7 lecture-style sessions as well as smaller break-out discussion sessions. We talked openly, candidly + honestly about brokenness, addiction, anxiety, self-injury, depression, eating-disorders + suicide.

You'd think it would have been the kind of conference I walked away from completely defeated + sure that all hope is lost in the world. Quite the opposite, it was the most liberating, refreshing + encouraging single event that I have ever had the pleasure of being a part of; particularly in the realm of mental health.

All Things Considered, I Choose Manual Labor

The crucial thing to live for is the
sense of life in what you are doing, +
if that is not there, then you are living
according to other peoples' notions
of how life should be lived.
—Joseph Campbell
 

Campbell also poignantly says, "The land of people doing what they think they ought to do or have to do is the wasteland." I read these two well-known quotes by Mr. Follow-Your-Bliss in the book Undoing Perpetual Stress by Richard O'Connor (highly recommend). They are so appropriately fitting for this post that has been brewing in me for some time. The inspiration comes from the NYTimes.com article, "The Case for Working With Your Hands," which overviews the book with the same title by Matthew Crawford.

What to do, what to do?
I discovered that NY Times article in September at a crucial point in my recovery from depression, when I was getting myself together to start working again. The questions, of course, that I have agonized over in search of 'the perfect answer' to (at least a hundred times since I was a kid):

"What will I do?"

"What can I do?"

"What am I good at?"

Not on Facebook

I cut the cord. The one that had me in a stranglehold. The one that had me glued to my computer screen for hours on end each + every day (hmm... sounds like an addiction, no?). The one that is simply emotionally unhealthy for me. The one that is also know as Facebook, which I'll use as an example in this article of how most problems result from the multifaceted interplay of external + internal factors; my most recent revelation + subsequent liberation.

Demystifying { My } Depression

In this ongoing war that seems to be my life, I have survived battle No. 13 of depression that started in May. Though, I emerge 'again' with my fare share of fresh battle scars, I also emerge a stronger, wiser, better person for having fought another battle. No lie, I'm quite tired of the fight + still wonder, "When will this war finally will be over?"


What's The Point? 
Each time I begin to descend, I question, "What's the point?" To be completely honest, depression sucks worse than anything else. Its impact is magnified because there's little that the average person can do to help; regardless of how many well-meaning friends 'insist' on being involved + trying to help. It's simply not their fight, it's yours to face. It can seem very hopeless (particularly when you believe that you're not strong enough to win the battle), but the key word here is 'seem'.

Tell Me Pgh: Hard To Love

Through personal stories,
we hope to encourage
understanding + social change.
—The Pittsburgh Foundation

The Pittsburgh Foundation + Bricolage Production Company presented a new storytelling series, Tell Me Pittsburgh on Tuesday, April 26 at 7:30 PM.

Their first event was entitled 'Hard to Love: Stories of Struggle in Pittsburgh'. Storytellers shared their stories of why Pittsburgh can be hard to love. The audience was invited to share their ideas on how we as a community can overcome these struggles.

I had the honor of sharing a little bit of my story with depression, suicide, anxiety + the damages that fierce gang caused to my career, my relationships + my self-esteem.

Silence Broken: PKN Presentation 03.24.2011

Demystifying Depression

View more presentations from On The Vine Creative

I recently had the opportunity to present Demystifying Depression for the first time on the large scale at Pecha Kucha Night in Pittsburgh to an audience of Designers and Architects via the event co-organized by AIGA Pgh + AIA Pgh. See also: http://pecha-kucha.org/night/pittsburgh/newsletters/2029

The response was outstanding!

On Metamorphosis + Freedom

The road ahead was curiously baren, gray + (thankfully) simply wet.

The landscape was breath-taking – ice coated the trees, which created a picturesque scene from some winterwonderland, like those so incredibly described by C.S. Lewis in The Chronicals of Narnia. The ice was the only remnants of the wintery front that passed through the night before.

This morning, the sky opened up + gorgeous rays of sun shined through + reflected off of big puffy clouds above as well as the icy tree limbs below + all around for as far as the eye could see. The lack of heavy traffic made for a surprisingly peaceful + surreal trek from State College to NYC; the only thing man-made ahead (besides the road + traffic signs) was a single big-rig several hundred feet ahead in the distance.

This was Day 3 of my On The Vine Creative: Living The Dream Tour (aka: OTV LTD). OTV [was] my freelance business + I [was] an advocate, writer, designer, crafter + russophile (as well as principal).

That small business + I had both undergone a momentous metamorphosis in the two months before this trek in early February.