If you build the boat, life will make the ocean

Feeling an energy of burnout looming in me. I had to skip going to the market today as recently it, among other things, has felt like a chore and work which i cant rise to. Today is the saturday of a long work week for me. I can feel the burnout and exhaustion, but also the constant doingness, constant thinking of over commitments and fatigue. I can sense all that and acknowledge where i have room to grow and expand. As well, reflect that ive been here, tired and fatigued, many of times before. What to do from there, im not sure. All i can do is admit ive been here before and it seemingly comes out of nowhere. I feel like the frog in heating water, and suspect life itself is that journey – suddenly realizing im in the hot boiling water off old age, and then its too late. What to become and do of this? Where to next. What to next. These questions are confronting. Are depressing. Are painful. The realizations are tedious and tiresome. And well, those questions of integrity. What is keeping ones word when one feels too tired to do so. Too tired to follow through. When one does over do the schedule what to do to work on that. To change. Fundamental questions about doing arise. About realistic expectations. About growth. Sacrifice. And what the path looks like. What is the journey to take and where does intuition guide me? Feeling lately i cant tell whats intuition and whats impulsive autopilot thoughts. Cant distinguish. And find myself wondering am i allowing some aspects of my intuition to thrive and others to starve. Am i really bias as to what fits societal lenses and what feels easiest to do. Seeking some semblance of understanding there. It may come. And it may take time. Find im perpetually strategiezing what im going to eat. Overthinking food, and needing to know im having some certain foods to maintain my good health and joy. Ok. Thats a factor. Accept that. Let it be. Relax. And move on. Trust in the forces that be. Relax. And know youll make it through all this. Its confusing and alot but be gentle with yourself. The path has to unfold some times, moments at a time.

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My day

Gather round readers, come postpone your day and sit, listen to the details of my day rather than experiencing yours. Perhaps i can describe colours and experiences more vivid then you actually living them. When you are numbed, a detailed version can show so much you missed.

Dont get your hopes up, i dont really want to talk about my day. I tend to write thoughts rather than events. Ideas rather than incidents. Even now, now real vision of what to unfold. Note to self, stop writing i dont know. We know your going to do it….

Its another day in paradise of a busy life 8n this century and city. My highlight was going to the gym and having a veggie burrito. Also my lunch. Few moments at work. Funny how so many hours can feel merely background work, autopilot. Is it possible to have a routine that is more highlight. What changes will that ensue. What level of responsibility and awareness will such a shift need? Though provoking questions. I listened to a mens work podcast today. Got me motivated. Always ways to be more in tune with myself, connected to my passions and purpose. Even a solid gym day. Or seeing friends. All ways to find that inner shine. So we go along the journey. Accept what arrives. And just hop on stage and speak. Hit record. Buy the ticket. Start the journey. Very motivating times and place. Lean into that. Word of the day, integrate. Notice what you repeat. Are your bad habits just a place where you havent integrated better ones? Sit in that. See where you have potential to expand and grow. Do the work. And trust the process.

Finding the flow

All my posts are these self help quotes, or self care ideas. It feels alittle predictable. Hard to really change things up or to step into a new idea. Well embrace what comes out i suppose. Hard to comprehend change sometimes. It appears in so many different forms. We are all human. And how things unravel can be very mysterious. Please accept my vague unspecific writing above.

Oh blanket words. Over generalized advice. This optimistic overstatement. Hard to right sincerely when every post feels immediately followed by some recovery words. To just have a low feels tough. Recognize theres a certain bias for certain content. Certain moods. Certain ideas. No company for misery these days. Accept such a strange time we live in. With all the things we have. And all the things we dont. To really see it all for what it is. Some posts are smaller. Not as clear. Alittle rushed. Most are alittle rushed. But im on my way. Acknowledging everything has its time and place. I wish i thought about each sentence before i wrote it. They all feel like they could be deleted. In the post where nothing is essential. Where everything is partially important. What a beautiful time we live in. Endless non essentials. To delete one is to delete them all. Where will the world transpire to? Nobody knows. Today was about being creative. I think i did that. In a weird strange abnormal way. Accept how we process the moment. Accept it i said! If you dont ill write some more reasons for you too. Oh god my writing is so weird. Okay one of those days. Hit post and cya later.

The 3rd blog post in a week!

Sensational title adam. Seriously brilliant. Patent it quick. What to say? Not sure. Many thoughts and tangents to ride. Where will this hitchhiking spirit of go where ever the wind takes me have me end up? Im not entirely sure. I can stick to that safe bet, write about how i dont know what to write about. How i repeat myself on here. Follow the same formulas, even when i truly come into this with new ideas and possibilities. How i get upset about certain things in life repedatively. I feel so haphazard in moments like that. Blindsided by things that seemingly repeat themselves. Feels so unneccessary to suffer like that. We fool ourselves calling the routine a variety. Are we ever inherently honest. Deep adam. Real it in abit.

Perhaps im tired. I stayed up last night for the first time in a long time. Drank for the first time in a long time. So many firsts in a longs. Its nice to have an excuse.

Well the week starts up again. The November. Soon it will be Christmas. Holidays. Then new years. Then spring. Then summer. The path so laid out ahead of time. Yet in the moment. Those checkpoints seem so far. Is old age just as well a series of milestones. Career success. Relationship pinnacles. Major purchases. Highlight family moments and memories. And then old age. Health problems. It feels so predictable. Despite so many, millions of small daily moments. One on top of the other countlessly. And they will all be micronutrients in this soup called life. Suttle intricate tiny pieces. Its startlibg to wonder like that. To imagine and dream of life through those lenses. Well. Im honoured i wrote. Kept the streak alive. I didnt work out, maybe ill run? Maybe i wont. Maybe best to let the chips fall. Lately i can force myself to exercise but feel really winded and exhausted by it all. Can i do better on that? Idunno but i see im out of touch of what i need. Just feel into it abit. See how you can grow. Where you can evolve and transform. Believe in those processes and transformations. See where the journey will take you. ✌

Consistency

This is a public private post. I feel ive been off my blog for so long that no one will even know i wrote this. I can write anything. I can be more creative then i normally am in my creative writing!

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Alright that was fun. Again, nothing to say, teach, proclaim, or begin. Just following the formula. Write. Its a pretty basic how-to. Just actually get on here and do something. It can feel meaningless. Whats the impact? Well, accept it for what it is and allow the journey to unfold. Dont judge things to quick. [Insert other blanket positive thinking thought]. Apart of the process is to just repeat sentences and phrases over and over to add word count and space? I think i unconsciously do that. I get into a sort of trance where i just write out things i could say to anyone, wouldent have ti apply specifically to me. Like “Just go for it”. You could prescribe that advice to anyone, regardless of even listening to them. You dont even need to with these blanket advices. I feel i do that to myself. I get very indirect, dont critically analyze my own thoughts and instead find it easier to do these blanket statements of thoughts and affirmations. Well. Kudos. Wooptydo. Still feel proud and grateful im doing the work and posting something. Notice the to do list. Getting so long. Must compulsively do stuff. Ok maybe not. But i do wanna shower before work. Thoughts on my subconscious. Ideas waiting to be hatched. Im like a hen. Ya thats it for today. Checkmark for doing it Adam. A for effort! Rest is just for fun. The only goal and task is simply, utterly, just – write.

Just to say i did it

A goal of mine was to write more this year on this blog. I also had a goal to do courses online, and ended up mostly doing those. I felt i had no vision with the blog. Im not intending to simply create a journal online. The coveted inspiration never came, thus neither did blog posts. I wonder if i could change my perspective. To write anything, simply for the perspective of writing and habit, rather than quality. I acknowledge there is certainly something to be said about quality over quantity. But if quantity is zero then expectations are far too high. And discipline too is a necessary key at times. To welcome more structure and less passion. To just accept writing for the sake of writing. So this is that. A blog post, not guided by quality, not intended to be shared. Just to be written. For my own peace of mind. Experience that. Celebrate that. A first blog post in a long time is a little win, but sincerely a big one also. Trust the form and formless this will appear as.

Travel materialism

Weve all heard experiences over things. Memories over wealth. As someone whos traveled many years i feel in some ways experiences themselves can become a sort of materialism.

An always needing more cycle.

I reflect on my 20s. Those were a times of nomadic lifestyles, of travel and exploration. I reflect how those days had alot of no regrets philosophies. Yet i cant help at time to project to those days. Could they have been different. Could i have done differently. Is it possible to regret having a mindset of no regrets.

I feel i woke up today, was born today, only have today. The places ive been feel more like stories ive read in a book rather than experiences i lived. I feel none of them last the test of time, even memories. I have photos, friends from those days, it all feels like a piece of life that i have to convince or remind myself that it really happened.

Was i traveling to escape society, a 9-5, being in the same place. Was i trying to escape the life i am living today? Was i demonizing it, condemning it, bad mouthing it. I feel like finally im living the many things i didnt have while traveling. Chances to read, not spend so much time on buses or trains. Eat well. This 9-5 life is a culmination of my unmet needs during and after travel.

I cant use my past travels as a form of currency that i can cash today. It was an experience, planted in those days, that exists there. Today i have a blank slate. I feel like in some ways ive never traveled at all.

I dont have much urgency for a vacation somewhere. I feel pretty content here now. Hard to accept such stark contrast of ideology to old me, but this is it. I want that again, but more so i want a base, a foundation, and to go from there.

Anywho, are experiences the new materialism? Maybe…i felt when i traveled europe i thought more countries was more valuable then less. Today i wonder if one country could have taught me more about variety then going to 10. We can see 1000 things, but if the seer never changes, that is a loss. The ability to grow as a human is the point. Today my growth is very much more civilized and societal. I appreciate that. More of the world is like this then the world traveler i was then. I feel more connected to humanity doing this now rather than traveling more. Work is my new passion. Local is my new travel. A close community is my new exotic.

Multifaceted multidimensional multiple titles

I was watching a youtbe channel of someone who does science and physics videos. Initially he wanted to do film making but found it hard to ‘break into’ it. He went for school as an engineer and today uses the knowledge he learns to make films.

Its interesting. I imagine him in his teens having such an image of what film are. Stories about detectives, vampires, love. And to transform that to educational youtube videos is a great modern outlet for that original love.

I think of this in context to myself. As a kid i had many interests. First outdoorsy activities like hockey, skateboarding, biking, then psychology and personal development. Then business and entrepreneurship. Then music and song writing. Then travel and food. Health and veganism. Spirituality. Writing, Journaling. As of late electrical engineering and STEM (probably inspired by my lego and toys as a kid). I look back at this repetoire of diversity and skillsets/life experiences i have. How do they add up? What is todays outlet of so many different forces?

I think about that in a way. I feel like im a magazine on so many various topics. Writing. Inventions. Psychology. Travel. Who is this Adam?

I feel im searching for that perfect ‘outlet’. What channels most of me? Is there something that is all of me, or atleast alot of me?

These questions can be alot, and atleast now feels unaswerable. The answer is the search, but the question dictates what sort of journey we have. Experts have the answers, but lately questions that dont have answers feel more valuable. What is the path forward? What is that ‘thing’ im searching for, were searching for? I dont know. All i know is writing is a passion of mine, and to engage with it is to simply write. Theres no perfect, best, ideal way. Doing it is the foundation of any way. So blogging is fun. It gets me doing it. Keeps me attached to what i enjoy. Self expression. New ideas. Creativity. So im enjoying that and experiencing that feeling. Does it have to be more, will it be more? Im not sure. I think peace of mind comes when i dont care. The joy is the moment, the act, not what it will, may, could become. The experience of doing it is the reward.

Yes id love some golden arches bright white light break through. Im sure every human wants that. Some next step or next level to what we think is possible. Risking, new experiences, taking chances. You will never build that dream thing if you never start. I think a new level for me is also embracing failure. Sounds so cut and paste to say that, but to say it differently, to not need the completion of something to signify its value. Half finished things can be perfect things. Half finished degrees, careers, books, etc. I think we live in a culture obsessed with sticking it out. Very real force. I myself tend to only have one book at a time to help me finish. I atleast try, but if im not feeling it ill let it go. Try something new, see what comes from it. Easier said then done, but acknowledge when something isnt working and needing change. Live life and get your experiences, remove the titles and labels, and its just that, experiences. Cherish those. Thats all we got. And embrace the philosophy there are no ends, only means. Dont stick it out at what isnt for you for too long. That may eat at you in a way thats not the healthiest. Feel it out. For me writing is my place to play and finger paint ideas and colors and philosophy on the page. Welcome that journey 🙏

Some sad parts about Whole Foods

I worked at Whole Foods a few years ago, and I was thinking last night about some sad realities they have.

1. They have a very good return policy, but generally, things that get returned are thrown out. I remember seeing anytime vitamins were returned, or any health product, it was dumped. Even expensive products or anything like that.
2. The breakfast from the hot bar, whenever it had left overs they would get dumped. They wouldn’t put it in the back for staff for example, and alot went to waste, everyday.
3. Whole Foods has a big recycle program open to the public outside. The issue is the companies that pick up these from Whole Foods have a no mix policy. If any plastic is in the paper recycling for example, the entire batch gets thrown away. It was usually only a few percentage allowance, and anymore and it would be tossed. It was really sad, the image of this sustainable, eco initiative, which behind the scenes would usually just go in the garbage anyways.

Aushwitz

I went to Aushwitz because part of my family has been in a concentration camp.  My grandma herself went to Aushwitz, and was a survivor, due to her late arrival there. It’s extremely confronting to imagine growing up in such a world. What happened there, in smaller scales, happened in a lot of other places. It’s a dark topic. Dark theme. But it has a sort of importance that only needs to be addressed a few times to leave a lasting impression. It has a magnitude and gravity which is so encompassing and hard to believe.

I was in Krakow (the big city near to the small town of Aushwitz) and had a sort of emotionless readiness to going to the concentration camp. It’s so strange putting your clothes on that day, getting breakfast, it’s all so frivolous and innocent in the shadow of what you are about to see.

A few times I wondered if I should go. It’ll be too heavy, to unlike the no frills backpacker life I’ve been embarking on. I did go; I would have felt too conflicted to miss it. It was just that hard to go as an observer, imagine being forced to go, during the time many years ago.

Just the historical impact on my family during the war made me feel obliged. So I took the train, to this small town an hour outside of Krakow. The historical site was packed, and you had to have a guide to go in. It took a few hours to get a guide, so in the meantime I walked to the other part of the camp, Birkenau. Aushwitz is a two location camp. One was a work camp, the other an extermination camp /housing place. Aushwitz began as the small work camp, and expanded to the other camp called Birkeanau (It was in this camp where the majority of deaths occurred).While waiting the few hours for my guide I wandered around Birkenau alone for a bit. What a weird, gloomy, toxic place to find myself. The grass grows; the buildings are sparse and ghost like. Hard to believe the lives lived (if you could call it that) and lifelessness created in such a place. What an odd backdrop for an awful history of humanity. Wandering for a few hours, I returned back to Aushwitz to begin the tour. Walking through the office buildings, the housing areas. They had these displays of human hair, since everyone who arrived got their heads shaved. How many peoples human hair you could fit in this massive part of a room. Enough to fill a small apartment. A symbol of the magnitude of people.

When I was in Berlin before this, I remember seeing a photo of some Nazi’s at Aushwitz smoking cigarettes and having some beers. The caption said “Taking a break from mass murder”. Really struck me that moment, they looked indistinguishable from regular people, enjoying regular life. Laughing and having a relaxing moment. How brainwashed the times must have been back then. Really hard to understand.

I captioned abit of this in my journal at the time. It read:

If you imagine a regular prison to be housed with murderers, now imagine a prison full of innocent people, now run by murderers. Aushwitz was a very dark place. At its peak it could execute 4000 people a day. A small town a day, 365 days of the year, for a few years. A total 1.1 million are said to of died.

It was very surreal to be on one plot of land, at one point on the earth, the span of a house, where perhaps 100s of thousands of people have died.

The Nazis were propagandist. Misleading and downplaying every step of the way. “It’s just a shower, bring all your belongings.” It was a reality no one challenged, they had no belief it could be as it truly was. No one said prove those are showers, or prove you won’t kill us. Everyone marched into a room because of the story they were told, the humanity they thought people had to have. If they were told it was a gas chamber, they would riot, so lies were the easiest form of control. 

I couldn’t understand why other countries didn’t bomb the railways, bomb the fences of the camps, and disrupt the flow. It took years to walk onto the soil with the intent of helping. For years, governments felt their hands were tied, or simply didn’t know. I wondered about that.

They had a room, the size of a small closet, where they made people just stand. Where there wasn’t enough room for everyone to sit. Imagine 40 people in a tiny closet. For a few days.

They had German war criminals run these camps. The imagination of an individual like this, able to beat, yell, and practically kill at will, a license to act out his darkest fantasies. What tragedy that humanity let such people indulge like that. In the biggest housing of the camp they would have 5 people to a bunk. The bottom people had sometimes been eaten by rats during the night. People’s feces from higher bunks would fall on these people. It was a mud, blood, feces bath on the bottom bunks. 

Prisons would get cold coffee (I think more like black water), soup made of rotten vegetables, and a piece of bread all day. It sounds like I’m over dramatizing it, but I believe that’s actually what it said during tours and books I’ve seen. My breakfast was more than these people who worked sometimes 11 hour days, with the equivalent of thin Pajamas (not onesies) during cold Poland snowy winters. Since more people were arriving every day, the moment you couldn’t keep up, you were killed. Public killings, hangings, were all common. If you escaped, they would hang 10 of your cell mates and leave them outside for everyone to see. An unbelievable, and really, unthinkable world. They had a shooting wall at Auschwitz. You would be taken to this wall and shot in the head. It’s strange to see this wall. It’s just a wall. Without the story behind it then it’s just concrete. With the details, it’s human, deeply troubling, and a new understanding.

They also had an infirmary where they did medical experiments. How long could a baby go without mother’s milk before it died, what happens if you inject gasoline to the heart. Giving doctors an operating table, endless amount of test subject (aka moms, kids, etc.), money to experiment, tools to use, and permission to go as dark as you wanted. This place really was the bad side of imagination. 

Before going to Auschwitz, I imagined it as a psychology museum. An outward manifestation of the inward feeling of hatred, immense pain, un-regulation, dark indulgences. How much pain inside would it take to do this to people. I imagine in Nazi’s that it was a resentment and anger that was getting unaddressed, building more and more until places like concentration camps began to be their only ways to express that hate. There were no solutions in time for nonviolent ways. The mentality was so vicious.

They say we are a social species and that by nature we don’t kill other humans. How we justify killing humans is by convincing ourselves that they aren’t humans, and dehumanizing another. Once someone isn’t considered human, we don’t have to act with morals of equality. Calling someone a pest, scum, a virus, filth, transforms an equal being to something like a dangerous bug or parasite. How we bend and transform reality with these images and words in our minds. What we see, how we feel about something, is completely dependent on the words we view it with. The propaganda during these times was outrageous. “A loyal worker is a happy worker”. “Tell on your neighbour for reading certain writing, get rewarded”. “Work is freedom”- that was the message as you enter the gates of Aushwitz. Yet people worked to death. How trapped people were. Yet, protesting landed even Germans in Aushwitz. The penalty was so severe; families of political prisoners would be murdered if you escaped. For most, silence was a form of saving themselves and others. How they could march town to town and bring people to these camps shows how high the penalty for resistance was. Maybe they really had that much wealth and power. Guns and a willingness to use them. Companies benefited off of the war. Germany gave tax incentives if you moved to Aushwitz and started business. You could have Aushwitz slaves as your workers. All the gold, the art, and money of these prisoners were sent to the Nazis. They literally kept getting stronger the more they invaded.

 

…….

 

Everyday problems become so small in a world of Aushwitz

In a place of so much death and destruction

Of everyday people loaded up like cattle to die         

What a strange imagination history had

I feel I do so little justice to the true reality and information this place has

How to help…

 

…..

Return to today time:

Aushwitz was a different form of travel. Everything else up to this point was glossy and relaxing. Reflecting back, this was heavy, and a stark counter balance to all I had done before. I was curious, and that was the common theme throughout the whole trip. Aushwitz taught me a lot about the real potential of wrongs that can be done, and have been done. I learned how complex the world is, how strange and unfathomable some events in history are. And worst of all, most unsettling of all, it happened around 80 years ago. There are still survivors alive today. Are we a whole new world? 800 years ago maybe, but 80, I don’t know. The capacity to change from that extreme that quickly, that’s not long ago, we can’t forget that. That to me says a lot. It’s a very intense place. The lessons are still fresh. There are still humans alive today with scars from the times. My grandma passed away a few years ago, and I can only imagine what it was like to start your childhood in such a world, where your family is destroyed before your even a little girl or boy. The topic is relevant even if it’s historical. Hidden from our day to day psyche even if it’s true and important. Thank you Aushwitz for the reality check and the lasting lessons. May we value our lives today. People back then would give anything to be in a café, having tea, enjoying the life and freedom and safety we have today. That’s part two of this post. The confronting that we are so lucky in many ways. That our worst are so small compared to such extreme events and times. It’s a re-evaluation of our daily life. Remembering these hardships of the past is rethinking our hardships of the presents. For me at least it’s an exercise of my imagination, how lucky and blessed someone at the camps in those days would have felt to just wake up one day in my life. I feel more responsible to see that, to value it, to honour it. It’s unfair at times that to value my life more is to compare myself to someone who had it worse. Seeing the light of the world today by exposing myself to the darks of yesterdays.