There's battle lines being drawn.
Nobody's right if everybody's wrong.
Young people speaking their minds
getting so much resistance from behind

Thursday, July 5, 2012

The universe has a wicked sense of humor

As you know, Cherise, I often talk about what the universe maybe trying to tell me. When I follow what I think it's trying to say, life tends to go a lot more smoothly. And when I go against it, I tend to get slapped around like a cat-nipped toy by the biggest feline in the world. So I tend to try and figure out if the universe is sending me signal to zig or zag or do the hokey-pokey or whatever.

This works out pretty good. In college I was introduced to the writings of Lao Tse (or "Old Master") and his concept of the Tao. The Tao, as it is, can be represented as a God head, several times removed from humans. But (and here we skate through millenia of philosophical discourse, interpretation, and general bantering about) there is a way to understand the Tao. The Tao is what created the universe. The universe created the world. And the world created nature, of which we are a part. Therefore if we study nature, we can see the echo of the will of the Tao as expressed through the universe.

Still here? Okay, here comes the fun part. While studying nature, it is possible to see how ignoring the will of the universe is often what nature does. Therefore it is part of the echo of the Tao to ignore the will of the universe (as the Tao is echoed through all of nature). Convoluted, no?

You may also know how I've talked about how the universe sabotages my plans to be a writer. That happened last week in a big way. I had gotten into the habit of exercising at least 3 times a week, sitting down to be bored by the screen and getting some words out (I know it gets better the more I do that, it's developing the habit of writing, the more you do, the easier it comes), and reading books before going to sleep (listening to books is good, but it doesn't trigger the "writing urge" like reading words does). And then the universe decided to bitch slap me.

First up was getting bumped up in the start date of the Radiologic Tech program. When classes start, say good bye to personal time, 'cause I ain't gonna see it until sometime near Christmas. And the same thing will happen every time class is in session for the next 2 years (and this includes full summer sessions). Not only am I going to be going to class for at full time, I'm also going to be keeping my full time job (at least that's the plan, since I'm an exempted salaried employee, part of that definition is that I get to set my own schedule - for the past two years I've made sure that I've had verbal approvals that once classes start, they'll work with me on schedules). Since I wasn't allowed to register for RT courses when registration began, all the most advantageous lab times were already taken. So that adds complexity and gross time spent away from other necessary things… like sleeping.

And then the day job went insane. I can't talk about a lot of what I do, but let us just say that a shit load of work was dumped on my desk, and much of that work is "ZOMG we gotta get this out of the door NOW!" So the past two weeks I've been running 50+ hour weeks (and that's only because the people who need to give me information haven't been feeding it to me, so I get to go home). That includes working the weekends.

Needless to say, my "habit forming" has been broken. Again.

But here comes the part when I bite my thumb in the universe's direction. This isn't the first time the universe has done this to me. Not by a long shot. Almost every time I get into the swing of things, the day job, or council, of a relative's health, or something goes all wonky and my time gets dumped down the sieve. But I keep coming back at it. Yes, the universe is sending me a message, and I'm telling it to go get stuffed. I'm a writer, damnit. I'm going to write.

Now, I just need to learn to laugh along with the universe. I think that's the trick to this.

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