The Daily Waffle, Thursday Edition

I was going to have a break from writing here, where barely anyone reads anyway (except for those of you who do, who I like very much).  Sometimes blogging feels like a luxury and I feel like I should turn my energy towards something more worthwhile, like some half-written essays that are collecting a bit of dust on them, being written by hand and then left in piles on the floor or on tables.  I'm feeling encouraged to return to essay writing (I love her so) after a big morsel of recent encouragement from Creative Nonfiction, who think they might have possibly found space for a piece I submitted something like nine months ago and while they understand that someone else might pick it up in the meantime (being a classy and understanding unit that accepts simultaneous submissions) could they hang onto it for a bit longer? Well, I figure another few months isn't going to make much of a difference, and I understand the difficulties that come with being a small enterprise having to plough through submissions from the world over. So while I understand and yet feel frustrated, I also feel heartened that a journal I love is considering putting some of my words inside it.  Even though payment won't extend to me being able to compost some of it back into a new subscription because I'm so bloody broke.

Sigh. Money.  I'll repeat here my mantra that money is meant to be a tool and a device that allows us to share our stuff amongst each other.  While there are lovely cinnamon-smelling whiffs of people doing it differently, money has on the whole become something that keeps us slogging and slugging and serving the machine instead. This HAS to change - and it will. The most surprising thing is that so little has changed half a decade after the GFC, except in pockets of sanity like Iceland, and even then that's not a systemic change but a facing of damage done.

Gazing into my crystal ball of future trends, I'll say expect to see more and more discussion over the next months and years about interest (or usury as it used to be called in the days where it was widely recognized as a great and destructive evil) and the concept of demurrage, which is something I'm still getting my head around but which basically is an element inserted into the economic system which would mean that the longer you hang onto money the more you lose because it will lose some of its value, so that hoarding it ends up becoming a ridiculous concept.  Which means that money again would become something that is meant to flow, not something some of us hang onto in a bid for security, and just this one thing would change so, so, so, so, so much.  We would begin resembling again the gift economics of the past and less the beholden and enslaved populace we are now.

~

I began panicking a little yesterday morning because when I woke up, I felt simply awful.  I felt like the sinusitis that's plagued me over the last year was making another return.  Congested head, dizzy, nauseous.  Buddhism talks about learning to face the things we are averse to, that cause a strong reaction of disgust within us.  I struggled with this aversion yesterday morning because I have had four weeks where I have begun to have a bit more energy, and where I have actually felt happy, and where my creative juices have begun dripping all over the floor.  To have to return to this small and ugly area was not something that I was savouring in the least.

So I tried to work with it.  I didn't want to be there, but instead of being averse I tried to embrace it.  Which meant going back to bed.  I surrounded myself with my phone, with some books, and with some paper and pen, and I wrote a complaining blog post, and I began putting my meandering thoughts down for a competition I've been meaning to begin exploring for a while.  And eventually, the aversion felt like it loosened its grip a little.  I even felt happy while feeling awful.  And so I chilled, drank lots of neem tea, flushed my sinuses with a xylitol rinse, and got through the day.  It was not where I wanted to be, but I managed to chillax with where I was.  I was very pleased.

I'm feeling so much better today than yesterday, but still weak.  But what felt like the beginnings of a full-blown sinus infection I think may have simply been a strong reaction to the smoke haze that hung like curtains all over the place yesterday from several fires on the outskirts of northern Melbourne, most of which have been deliberately lit by people who really need to get a handle on whatever shit they're projecting onto a bunch of innocent animals. 

I struggle so much with feeling so vulnerable with a body that does not work properly.  It really is a vulnerable position to be in.  And yet I keep reminding myself that vulnerabilities can also be strengths.  They help us stay open, and compassionate, and understanding of others who feel the same way.  They slow us down in certain areas, which may be exactly what other parts of us are screaming for.  I guess it's all in the way you get to look at it, if your anxiety levels will distil enough to let you see the sandbars.