The set is coming along nicely. It’s here.
Quite a lot of you over the years have asked me about Vipassana and my daily meditation practice. I’ve never been good at explaining meditation in general, as for me it is an experience that transcends words, and Vipassana in particular is a tricky nut to crack. But most of the questions come not from people who are trying to understand Vipassana, but rather those who just want to begin a daily practice of some sort and are looking for a place to begin.
The Chopra Centre are currently offering a 21-day online meditation challenge, free of charge. It’s a series of downloadable audio files, all quite short, that lead you through the basics of different types of meditation, focusing on one aspect per day. I’ve listened to a couple of the audio files out of curiosity, and they’re certainly suitable for any beginner, even if you’ve never meditated before, and Davidji (the man who guides the meditations) has a pleasant voice and is even humourous at times.
I’ll admit I don’t know a lot about Deepak Chopra, though I’ve heard plenty of reports both positive and negative, so I can’t really vouch for the overall quality of the material his organisation puts out. I certainly don’t think you should go into this 21-day challenge expecting to come out enlightened, or even an expert meditator, but that’s hardly the point. The point is to create the habit of daily meditation while exposing yourself to the different techniques that are available to you. I suppose the hope is that after you’re finished with the course, you’ll want to pursue meditation further, either on your own, or by seeking more formal instruction. So if you’ve always wanted to meditate but never managed to get the momentum up, now’s your chance. Link
When I was eight years old I made a 25-year time capsule, which sadly got lost and I never got to open it. I’ve been experiencing some rather childish and useless bitterness over this, so in an effort to get over myself and have some fun in the process, I’ve decided to start again and make a new time capsule. I bought a box for it a couple of days ago (a kiler box!), and I’ve set a date of 16 November for the sealing ceremony. If all goes to plan, I’ll be opening it up again on 16 November 2035.
Thinking of things to put in the capsule seems like much more of a heavy responsibility now than it did when I was a kid. I read somewhere that cultural anthropologists find most time capsules boring, as they include a lot of very general information that these days can be looked up on Google, and they don’t cointain very much in the way of personal letters, photos, and evidence of what daily life for the participants was like at the time of the sealing.
With that in mind, I’ve got about a hundred days to try to sum up my life in 2010, in a way that future-me will hopefully find interesting and enlightening.
Making friends takes on a different meaning when you move to a country where the local culture is so very different from your own. While I’m all about learning new things and living a different kind of life from what I’m used to, sometimes you just want to hang out with someone who gets your pop culture references without a lengthy explanation, and watched the same cartoons you watched as a kid.
Anika was only here for a year, but we’ve known each other for nearly three years, and this was not her first time living in Antalya. I guess I had a delusion that she would be here forever, even though I saw her applying for medical schools in the United States, and I knew full well what that meant. Now she’s been accepted into the medical programme at Pittsburgh, and like that, she’s gone. It was a very bittersweet moment to know that she was getting exactly what she wanted, and at the same time she was going to have to give up her life here, and we would have an Anika-sized hole in our day-to-day existence.
So, there’s that weird mixture of sadness and pride to deal with, but also things can move very quickly here. Almost as soon as we knew Anika would be moving away, another friend from the United States made the decision to wrap up her life there and make the move to Antalya, so now there’s her arrival to look forward to. There’s a huge turnover in a place like this— people coming and going all the time. Some stay for many years, some only a few months. You would think that it would pay not to get too attached to people, but sometimes you just can’t help it. Thank god for the internet and 4G technology, keeping us all in touch.
New photo project: 100 self-portraits over the course of a year, with accompanying text by Dante.
I’ve never felt I could do a 365 justice, nor do I want to attempt it. Taking a photo of yourself every single day means you have to do it even when you’re ill, or too busy to do it well, or just not feeling it for whatever reason. In most cases, it seems to become a chore, something people do just for the sake of saying they did it. No one is on their A-game everyday all year round, and to be honest, at this point A-game is the only thing I’m interested in. If that means I take a photo every three days instead of everyday, or take eight in a day when I’m on fire and then skip it for a month when I don’t feel it, then that’s fine. I never want this to be about quota over quality. At the same time, the challenge of a framework is good to push the work ethic. “X amount of photos within Y timeframe” has worked well for me in the past, as it holds me to a number while giving me the flexibility not to take photos on days when those photos would be mediocre at best.
Why self-portraits? Because with all the attractive people around me, I hardly photograph myself anymore. Like my friend Rachel remarked, it’s easy to feel like you’ve forgotten how to capture your own image. And I don’t want to forget.
The set is here; one photo up so far, but you can hook up to the RSS feed on that page and watch them roll in.
I get a lot of e-mails and Twitter messages from people saying that they envy my life, and while I’m certainly grateful for what I have and the things I’m able to do, May was a sobering reminder that it’s not all wine and roses. I still have problems just like everyone else. I had a moderate health issue that took me out of commission for most of the month, and during the few intermittent days when I was well enough to be up and about, the thought of trying to get caught up on things like writing and photo projects was too overwhelming to deal with.
Things are back on the upswing, however, and as much as I hate summer, I’m actually looking forward to June. I want to get the Hidden Anatolia project fueling wrapped up as much as possible, and starting tomorrow I have a new introspective photo project starting up (details coming soon!). I think the goal is to keep as busy as possible during the hottest months, so that maybe I won’t notice how awful this whole wretched season is.
Also, I’m looking at taking a brief break from the heat— somewhere really, really north. Just for a few days. I’m thinking Arctic Circle.
Anyway, first things first: a lot of people have asked about Hidden Anatolia over the past few days, and a couple of very generous donations have come in, including a second one from LeahAndMark.com, bringing their fueling total to a whopping $200! It’s fantastic to have such amazing support from friends in the community, and you can get involved as well, no matter what your budget. Fueling levels start at just $1, and even at that amount you’ll still get your name published in the official Hidden Anatolia book! The reward levels go up and up from there, and I look forward to having as many fuelers as possible, so if you ever wanted to be a patron of independent art, now’s your chance!
I don’t think I’ve ever talked about my life in Texas here before, mostly because I just don’t think about it all that much. What’s in the past is in the past— I don’t usually suffer from homesickness or overwhelming nostalgia, and since I haven’t lived in the US in over a decade, I really don’t connect with what’s going on there. But when I ran across this slideshow announcing the last night of San Antonio’s famous Liberty Bar, my blood ran cold. The Liberty Bar (which is actually a restaurant as much as it is a bar) was once a staple of my life, and I have some very vivid memories of spending time there with some people who were not only very important to me, but who are no longer with us. I don’t often get sentimental about things like this, but here we are. This is the price of leaving home— home eventually moves on without you.
Apparently they’re moving the Liberty to a new location, which I think is a bad idea. The whole charm of it was that it was in that delightfully wonky building that seemed to defy gravity. Also, I’m pretty sure nothing is allowed to change in this world without my express written permission.
I’m weirdly sad about all this.
After I posted the YouTube teaser for the Hidden Anatolia project yesterday, it was pointed out to me that people residing in certain areas don’t always have access to YouTube, and that perhaps a supplementary Vimeo version would make sense. So I uploaded one, and as it turns out, I think it actually looks a lot better than the YouTube one. Based on that experience, I’ll probably move to Vimeo as my default video service for this project, and just link to the YouTube versions as an alternative for those who don’t like Vimeo for whatever reason.
As for the project progress, it’s going really well! Funding just hit the $400 mark, and things are showing no signs of slowing down. This is great news, but we still need a lot more people to get involved. The contribution levels begin at $1, and even at that level you can get some really cool rewards. Link
Oh, and tomorrow… I have a surprise for you.
Here’s the teaser for the Hidden Anatolia project, and today I learned that it’s now the front page featured project on RocketHub! I’m really excited about how things are going, it’s got some good movement so far.
But of course, more momentum is still needed, so please do look at the project details and see what you think. Check out the rewards on the right-hand side of the page— these are the gifts and rewards you will get for participating! I tried to make a range of rewards so that people at every level would feel comfortable contributing.
Anyway, check it out and get yourself on the acknowledgements list! It’s going to be an epic project, and I’d love to have as many people involved as possible.
ETA: For people who can’t see YouTube videos, there’s a Vimeo version here.
Hope everyone is having a great Sunday, whether you’re celebrating anything or not.
