YEAR 2 IN REVIEW

It’s been a little over 2 years of continuous recording. Last year I did a summary of what I had learned so I thought I’d do the same again.

This past year I have:

1. Continued this project and picked up recording despite moving to Spain, traveling around Spain, traveling to India, and going on a trip around the world to the north and south of China, Vancouver, and up near the arctic circle in Churchill, Manitoba to cover polar bears in the wild for work.

2. Maintained and expanded my writing habit. Completed my first course in at least a decade on nonfiction book proposals, specifically for a book on this project. Also completed a NaNoWriMo book on this project in a record 10 days. Talked to two industry people, an editor and agent, who expressed interest in the subject.

3. Began more intense training in meditation and blew away any previous experiences with “hardcore” practices. My experiential and intellectual knowledge on the subject has increased exponentially, and I’ve guided several people on both single pointed and vipassana.

4. Established the fastest and “crispest” habit thus far, rowing.

5. Formulated a more robust view of self help incorporating willpower, endurance, and skill improvement, viewable as a three dimensional graph.

6. Attempted and scrapped a marketing habit, getting up early, another dynamic meditation habit, and another eating habit.

7. Discussed concepts like habit harmonics, taking weekends off, ratcheting, the progression dilemma in mastery, depletion and vortex forces, and mid-range planning

Whoo! I’ve also started migrating my blog to merge it with my main site. In the next year I hope to be able to start really nailing down pesky habits like diet and sleep regimentation. I also hope to have a book proposal down, and start cross publishing posts on self help to other websites and publications.

That’s a lot. But really, I remember when I used to have so many problems with even writing every day. To be able to see how I’ve duplicated my completion of NaNoWriMo, been able to easily form a rowing habit, or continue the project despite incredibly disruptive travel…well, it makes me hopeful.

DAY 365!!!! ONE YEAR!

Day 365 Record Keeping
Day 334 Fixed Meditation (brought up negativity, quelled it. HARD)
Day 280 Bodyweight Exercise (3x5 bulg split squats - HARD)
Day 207 Writing (a lot of editing)
Day 380 Eating = 75
Day 137 Work = PAUSED
Day 15 Dynamic Meditation = 58 (30 min)
Bad sleep, good wakeup.
Holy moly, it’s one FULL YEAR of daily recording!!! More on this in another blog post.

Dynamic Med Notes (30 min):
x2 shoulder
x2 satisfaction
x3 dissatisfaction
Notes: Nothing too noteworthy. I’m really trying to maintain a level of satisfactoriness in each moment of doing something I find administrative, irritating, time consuming. It’s very difficult to retrain.

But, when I’m in it, I’m listening to music, I’m looking at travel pictures, I’m writing about things I find fascinating. Yet, in between moments, I get this feeling of wanting to hurry up and get through these tasks. I should be enjoying the moment.

Hypnotica in one tape to add a modifier, even if it doesn’t make any sense. Why can’t something that is tedious be EPICALLY tedious? Why can’t it be BLISSFULLY tedious?

I was watching ChoZen yesterday, and it’s hilarious how he uses his struggle as fuel for his rapping - and it seems like rappers do this a lot - they mythologize their life as an an epic quest for rap domination, where even the hum-drum parts are reinterpreted as leading to eventual glory. And THAT’S the battle.

I’m thinking here of Eminem’s frequent lines about going “back to the lab” to write and record. Why can’t I pull from that in order to give meaning to the stuff that’s not glamorous in my life?

I feel that mythologizing can help me get into an ideal frame in dynamic meditation where even standing in line at the DMV can have be at a base happiness level.