Good to Escape the Frigid North

Lest you think that this trip is all struggle and angst, I should put a little energy into talking about the fun elements!

Let us start with the weather.  Truthfully, the whole reason I am in Morocco is because I kept looking for a warmer place to visit after I landed in Madrid.  Madrid was the primary destination as it is in Southern Europe (warmer) and I have a former student living there who has been helpful with travel plans (and a potential place to crash!)  From there it was just a matter of considering, whither South?

So, here I am, where it is cool, to be sure.  As I sit in the salon drinking my coffee and awaiting breakfast it is 40 degrees fahrenheit, but at home it is eight below.  I like a fifty degree difference.  It'll get close to sixty here over the course of the day.   Both days the sky has been clear and the sun has shone and it is all lovely. It ain't Orlando, but then again, it ain't Orlando.

Of course, the locals are all in numerous layers including their winter coats, but it is, for them, the coldest time of the year.

Money is another amusing part of being here.  Money is truly a question of scale.  The Moroccan dirham is scaled at one dirham to twelve cents.  That means that the smallest bill, a 20 dirham note, is worth about $2.40 US.  A cup of tea at a local cafe is 10dh, and a good meal is less than 100dh.  The funny thing about it is that I find myself working to spend as little as possible, since using a 100dh note feels like spending a lot of money.  Of course, it's not.  It's $12US.  It's about scale.  In Spain it's the opposite effect.  The Euro is about $1.33US, so if you use a $50E note, you've actually spent about $62US.  The result, somehow a room for $50E seems less expensive than a room for 750dh!

And walking around the Medina is a feast for the senses.  Medieval architecture, shops filled with hand-crafted items of every description, people everywhere.  The smells alone are a journey unto themselves.  Everything from the pungent smell of urine in darker corners to a million different wonderful smells from cooking to the sharp smells of work in the tannery, in woodworker shops, from metal workers...you can close your eyes and experience the whole thing just through your nose.

But today is about opening my eyes and relaxing.  So, off I go!

Friendly is Better Than Not

I'm going to leave the following post up as a cautionary tale.  To be honest, I am somewhat chagrined that I even got to a place of such paranoia when what I should have been doing was staying open to the world.  So it goes!  Suffice to say that I went out for a lovely walk in  and around the Medina this morning and chatted with folks, both tourists and locals, and enjoyed myself completely.  Clearly, it is about attitude.  My takeaway, sure, be careful, but don't let the admonitions to avoid the pitfalls of travel convince you that you should do anything except engage the world.

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Being in the Fez Medina has been completely exhausting.  Actually, so far this whole trip has been exhausting.  It's hard to imagine that I am finishing day five and have ten days ahead of me...I feel like I've been on the road for weeks!  It's an exercise in cultural immersion, and it's certainly exercised me thoroughly.

By the end of the day today I was thinking about some of the work I had done around cultural competence with the school district.  One of the strategies that is suggested for increasing your capacity to integrate other cultures is to find opportunities to immerse yourself in those cultures.  Rather than observing a culture from the safe distance of a book or a museum, or even through meeting an individual, this strategy involves leaving your own cultural setting and immersing yourself in the real world of someone else's culture.

Yeah.  So, here we are.

It's a bit unsettling that I am having this kind of emotional response to the difficulty of being in a completely different culture.  So much for being laid back and relaxed.

Over the course of the day I found myself moving from being a bit nervous all the way on through to being overwhelmed and fearful.  Fearful surprised me.  After a long walk this morning down through the Medina, up around the east side and then back through to the Riad I was pretty well shot.  It was a long walk physically, there are a lot of hills here and even though I bypassed some of the up part with a quick petite taxi I still did a lot of walking uphill.  Yet, even more draining was the constant battle to avoid being drawn into something I didn't want.  The fear of creating a commitment to purchase or go or do something because I couldn't communicate adequately, and also because I believed that the folks around me were motivated to get me to go or do or buy when I might not want to.  

And I think this last piece is the part that I most needed to reframe.  No one is trying to hurt me here.  This is a tourist destination, not some kind of boot camp.  It's weird how you can get inside your head and lose track of what's really going on.

Most of the people here are interested in providing a guide if I want one, to sell me things that are nice and mostly at really good prices, to help me find things...stuff like that.  These are friendly people. Walking around thinking, eyes front, eyes front, eyes front, was taking me to a place of fear and even potentially hostility, and the thing that kept running through my head was, that's not me.  I'm not that guy.  I like smiling at people.  I like saying hello.  The advice that you find online to not respond to folks that approach you may be effective, but it's not who I am and it doesn't work for me.  I'm not going to wander around with my head down because then you have to ask what the hell I'm doing here.

Now, there is an extent to which if you respond to a come-on you invite it to continue.  This is a real problem.  The solution, though, from my perspective, is to communicate more clearly; not to stop communicating.  So that's what I'm working on now.  Smile.  Say hello.  Be clear that I don't need anything or that I am just looking.  This seems to work.  Also, I finally figured out that I am surrounding by vendors and friendly folks who want to be helpful.  The more I ask for help, the more connected I am to this group of people.

It also helps that I have now made the circuit of this part of the Medina several times.  The three or four guys that seem to work the side street leading from the Riad to the main streets are starting to recognize me -- after all, there aren't a lot of big Anglos with long, grey hair around.  They may even remember that I gave them a couple of pitiful coins the first time they approached me, and that seems to have helped.  Also, I'm a big guy.  No one is going to bother me.

Fear is the mind-killer. Fear is the little-death that brings total obliteration. I will face my fear.

It seems a little crazy, this whole thing, but it's real.  

The other piece of this is the very, very real extent to which I am not like anyone else I see.  In the course of the day I say maybe one or two other middle-aged Northern Europeans.  There are a few folks here at the Riad from San Francisco and New York, so they are out there as well, but we're pretty unusual.  There are lots of tourists, of course.  Folks from all over Europe, Asia and the Middle-East.  Lots of people lost and wandering the Medina.  Still, when I was walking the main thoroughfare outside the Medina this evening, I was the only guy wearing a bright blue jacket.  Everyone else was in black and shades of brown.  Lots of leather and wool.  It's a small thing but it was really interesting to watch.  

And people watch me.  People make eye contact and hold it in ways that I'm not used to...and it's got to be because I'm something unusual here.

Anyway, as I said at the start, this is all a good exercise in cultural competence, but it's a challenge all the same.  If it sounds like I'm complaining, I'm not.  The whole point of this journey is to get a better sense of what the rest of the world is like.  The thing I love about being in the old city here is that you can't escape the cultural difference.  It's a pretty complete immersion experience.  Western civilization is here, but it's on the other side of some thick walls and since you're usually lost it ain't nearby.

I'm trying to flip it over and think about the people who come to Minnesota or other parts of the US from around the world.  I think about how they tend to congregate together and separate from the rest of American culture.  I think about how hard it is to make that transition.  Imagine how fearful you would be.  Even the little experience that I am in now doesn't compare, since I bring an entire continent of privilege with me and the knowledge that at any time I can walk back to the Riad, head for the airport and never go out there again.  I am on vacation, not fleeing war or poverty or oppression.

Well, that's some thoughts for today.  I don't think I would say today was fun, but it was engaging and a good stretch.  I saw a lot of really fascinating people and places.  My goal for tomorrow is to relax enough to enjoy it more.  Smile more.  Laugh more.  One guy I talked to today, who was using his broken English to try and convince me to buy a tour of the Tannery (which he said would cost 600,000 something...I'm pretty sure it was supposed to be a joke) observed that they hadn't seen many Americans lately, and also that I laughed a lot.  He was making fun of my laugh on the way out, a little mockingly I think as I had turned down his sales pitch by then, but that's okay.  I plan to laugh anyway.

Surviving the Moroccan Con

The title is  little unfair in that it seems to imply that Morocco is unique in its efforts to separate the naive from their hard earned cash.  Nothing could be further from the truth.  Still, this is the first place where I have encountered an entire industry that is so complete and blazon in its dedication to the task. No, that's not true either.  The difference lies more in the extent to which the con, that is to say, the confidence deal, is built into the official systems of the land.  In the United States, the banks con you in a million different ways; the politicians con you; and in particular the entire social economy of consumption cons you.  In places like the United States the transaction is built on  different kind of power and sleight of hand.  Here in Morocco, the con is smaller and is only codified in informal ways.

A couple of things need to be in place for a con to function.  There needs to be, first and foremost, a mark who is in some critical way naive in regard to the matter at hand.  The mark needs to have something they need or want, or needs to be tempted by some new opportunity.  The con needs to have information or power that appears to be of value to the mark.  Finally, the cost or the service being rendered to the mark needs to be out of the control of the mark.  When you think about, for instance, banking in America, all of these circumstances apply, particularly for those who are less well educated or who have fewer resources.  It is not surprising that the structure of banking benefits the wealthy and tends to find opportunities to take advantage of the poor.

In Morocco the transaction is both more exciting and less costly.  Also, the beneficiaries of the con are likely considerably more deserving.  Here, the mark truly has more wealth than the con.  In the United States, the opposite is true.

I was thoroughly warned of this phenomenon before arriving.  Anything you read about traveling in Morocco is filled with advice related to how to avoid the various unofficial of vendors of services, both needed and unneeded.  Also, there is also a group of folks who will separate you from your personal belongings without the benefit of any kind of con at all, they just take it.  So, I arrived somewhat forearmed and as I stepped off the ferry in Tangier I was prepared to do battle.

By the way, I am writing this morning from the balcony patio of the Riad here in Fez where it is only 40 degrees but the sun is warm.  A rooster is crowing with great determination nearby. I am enjoying my coffee, which was left at my door in a charming whicker basket.  I am paying good money for the room, so its not free...it's a different kind of con.

As expected, I was immediately accosted by taxi drivers, though at this point we are a considerable distance from any taxis of any kind.  "Sir, are you with group or private?"  "Taxi?"  I lower my head and press forward ignoring them completely.  It's not easy.  Eyes front.  Eyes front.  The advice you get is to look like you know where you are going.  Unfortunately, if you don't know where you are going and you just keep moving you will very likely end up in the wrong place.  It doesn't help that the debarkation area for the Ferry has no apparent order to it, though there are a limited number of options for wading through the chaos.  I manage to get through a remarkably informal baggage inspection station and head left out of the depot.  I am walking down a long ramp and in front of me is nothing that looks particularly useful.  Keep moving.  Eyes front. "Sir, Taxi?"  "Sir, Can I help you?"  Well, yes, of course you could but at this point I don't have the local currency and all advice suggests that I move forward.

Except I'm pretty sure now that I'm heading the wrong way.  Nothing looks like it's going to help me figure this out.  You can't stop.  If you stop you are lost.  There is a man at my elbow who smells panic, fear and desperation.  Inspiration!

"Where's the bathroom?  Banyo?"
"Yes, yes, this way?"  He points back up the ramp and though he follows me a few steps he falls away when he realizes that I really am heading for the bathroom.  An attendant offers me toilet paper at the entrance...more on that somewhere else I imagine, and I escape into the relatively peace of the bathroom to collect myself.  It's not an inviting safe house.  Hmmm....

Exiting the bathroom I spot a staircase I had missed earlier.  I head down the steps and what to my wondering eyes should appear?  A man in a uniform!  Huzzah!

I whip out my phone and show him the name and address of my destination.  He helpfully points up the side of the hill in front of us, on which this end of the old city of Tangier is built.  "Up the hill, in the Old City.  Take a little taxi."

Okay, I need a little taxi.  Good enough.  Walking away from him I realize I need to exchange my Euros.  It's not obvious how to do this and as I consider turning around to ask, though moving forward, eyes front, eyes front, I encounter another helpful soul.  "Taxi?"

Somewhere along the line you have to consider the possible benefit of giving in to the con.  After all, if it is a true con you are going to get something out of it, you just might pay more than you should.

"Yes!" I say with some vigor.  "But I need to change my Euros."
"Bank.  This way."  He says this while pointing to an assortment of disappointing looking shacks near the parking lot and starts leading me in that direction.  A lot of things go through your mind at this point.  This doesn't look like a bank?  Why am I following this guy?  Does he have a little taxi? Why a little taxi?

As I continued to let these confident positive thoughts circle through my brain we approach a somewhat temporary building which appears to have someone in it and the lights are on.

"Bank."  He says with confidence.  It ain't Chase Manhattan, but when I stick my head through the door there are computers and cash and I ask, "Can I change Euros here?"
"Yes, of course."

Okay.  It seems legit.  The two guys in the room appear to be doing some kind of banking and are willing to exchange my 50 Euros for what I know is the right amount of dihrams and they make me sign an official looking form.  So far, so good.

Out the door to the taxi.  He does have a taxi.  There's a taxi sign right on the roof.  Thinking I'm smart, I ask him how much.  "100."  Okay, that's only $12.  I can do that.  I throw my backpack in the back of the cab, have a seat and show him the address.  Off we go.  I notice there is no taxi meter in the dashboard.

Riding in a cab in Morocco is a particular kind of excitement.  Imagine streets that are roughly the size of the car, or if they are wider then cars are parked so that the remaining space is about the size of the car.  Now, add people.  Lots of people.  It's Saturday night and the old city is filled with people.  You might imagine that this would mean the taxi moves slowly, but you would be very, very wrong.

My driver speaks passable English and chatters all the way to the hotel.  He is very informative and describes some useful landmarks as we zip along the edge of the Medina heading for my hotel, the Dar el Kasbah.  We arrive directly...I assume that since we're working with a fixed fee that he is motivated to be efficient...and I give him 120 dihrams, figuring a tip is expected.  I'm very satisfied with this arrangement as he has deposited me at the door of my hotel, which is barely labeled and which I would never in a hundred million years found on my own.

Success, you think? Well, yes, but also I was the "victim" of a con.  Now, understand, I was a very happy victim; however, I have since learned that a little taxi is an official taxi which is blue and labeled, "Petite Taxi".  They have taxi meters and the trip I took from the ferry station to my hotel should have cost about 20 dihrams -- which is about $2.40 US.  So, I paid an extra $10 or so as a result of my naivete, but here's the deal.  Judging the transaction from my Western perspective, I am perfectly satisfied.  I needed him, he needed me, the price met my requirements.  Voila!

The next day I took a taxi from Cafe Haffa to the train station.  This trip is pretty much all he way across the central portion of Tangier, but the meter only made it to 10 dirhams...$1.20.  Unfortunately, I didn't have change, so I had to give him a 100 dirham note.  He looked at me and what followed was a halting negotiation as to how much change I was going to get.  He made a cutting motion across the bill.  "Yes, 80 for me, 20 for you."  I thought this was fairly generous, though I was still shaking my head over how cheap the official taxi is.  He implied that he couldn't make change and seemed confused as he rummaged through his pockets pulling crumbled bills of various denominations.

And that was the nature of his con.  I would call it a petite con.  I think on some level that he hoped I would give up eventually and just let him keep the change.  Honestly, in retrospect, I would have happily paid him 100 dirhams for the trip, but at that moment I was invested in negotiating the transaction successfully.  Eventually he gave me 70 in bills and a handful of coins, which I later realized was the correct change.

Side note -- I have now moved downstairs to the salon, which is next to the garden and has a fireplace, for breakfast.  Good lord, such a feast.  Food will be another post, but suffice it to imagine that I am sitting in a beautiful place, eating fresh fruit, yogurt, granola, tea with honey, orange juice, and freshly cooked breads...and continuing to journal.  Yup, that's the idea.

The other con that is very difficult to avoid has to do with what I would call, "Saving the Lost Traveler."  Should you be so foolish while walking down the street as to pause and look around, you can be assured that someone will spot you and begin the approach.  They are so friendly, and so happy to meet you.  There appear to be two variations on this con, the Quick Buck and the Full Monty.

I have succumbed to the quick buck twice.  The first time was Saturday night.  I was looking for a particular small shop in a more modern section of Tangier near the French Embassy.  As I peered across the street there was suddenly a guy beside me, "Can I help you?"  I laughed and we had a short conversation about how I must have appeared lost but was just looking for a store.  He knew exactly where it was, which wasn't hard since it was across the street and well marked, but he led me there regardless.  We had a nice conversation about places to see in the area, including an English pub, but I knew this was not a good sign since he could have easily pointed the way and wished me God speed.  Then he led me inside the store.  Then he helped me make my purchase.  Then he followed me outside.  Realizing that I needed to get rid of this guy sooner rather than later I announced that I was returning to my hotel and thanked him firmly.

"You pay me?"  Yup, there it was.  "For what?"  Of course, we both knew what I would be paying for and it wasn't for helping me find the store.  The real negotiation that needed to take place was to see how much it would cost to get this guy off my tail. He wanted 100 dirhams which was ridiculous, but at that point I was pretty engaged in getting him to go away.  Eventually I gave him 50dh, about $6 and figured that was a cheap lesson in how the Quick Buck might work.  He let me walk away from him, though he slipped up to me after I crossed the street and asked me if I liked hashish.  That would be the entre for the Full Monty.  I don't really want to think about how badly things might go awry if you were to follow this guy in search of a party.

While looking for the Riad in Fez I had a similar encounter when two younger guys became very interested in helping me find the Riad.  Again, I made the mistake of pausing to look at a sign, but this time I very emphatically repeated that I was fine and knew where to go.  This was not good enough, though, and they trouped along with me to the entrance to the restaurant where I was to find my host.  These two guys encouraged me to keep going. "Is closed.  Riad this way."   This time I ignored them and headed for the restaurant entrance, which was open.  I knew that safety lay in going inside.  One final mistake, though.  I turned back to them and said, "I am meeting my host in here.  Thanks!"

"You pay us."  Again.  I could have just turned around and gone inside, but there is a deep desire in me, and I believe in most of us from the West (maybe everywhere) to complete our social interactions.  It seemed rude to just walk away.  That is ridiculous, I know, but there you have it.  Besides, there efforts were industrious.  I reached in pocket and after some poking about pulled out two coins.  I had no idea how much it was but I was confident it was much less than they hoped for.

"This is nothing," he says!  I laughed.  "Sorry."  Into the restaurant I go.  I think I gave him about 1.20rh, which is about fifteen cents.  After I realized that they were trying to lead me astray for some variation on The Full Monty I felt like I had done pretty well in that exchange.

So, rules to live by.

• Don't talk to anyone on the street unless you initiate.  Period. [Udate:  Ignore this.   Talk to everyone.  But be prepared to say no with some vigor if you are offered assistance you don't need.]
• Use the blue taxis.
• Find a cop and get advice. [Also, shopkeepers and other folks engaged in meaningful activity.  You might want to be a little careful of folks who are loitering, but it's okay to be nice.]
• Plan ahead.  
• Have some coins or small denominations ready to help you disengage.  

Of course, as long as you keep to public places and are firm about negotiating, the Quick Buck con is somewhat entertaining and generally cheap.  The thing to avoid is the Full Monty, that's the key.  Bottom line is its hard to avoid a con the first time you are in a new place.  Naivete and the need to find things will make you the perfect mark, so in some instances you just have to relax and pay the tariff!  Remember, it's all cheaper than banking.

4,528 Miles from Home

And now we'll dispense with the random contemplation of life's little questions and return to straight up travel journaling.  Lots of boring logistics to follow!

As the crow flies, I am 4,528 miles from home experiencing that most desirable of traveling moments, the exquisite relief when you are comfortable and safe after a long period of uncertainty and energetic exertions.  Currently, I am situated in the common room of the Riad Idrissy, which is run by an bustling young guy who was simultaneously managing the attached restaurant.  Getting checked in was a little bit of an exercise in embracing the random abstract that is also expressed physically by the way that the streets are arranged here.  I arrived at about four, and
the host in the restaurant sent someone to tell Robert that I arrived.  He then offered me the option of having a seat and a beverage while I waited for Robert, so I seated myself in the open air cafe for a cup of tea.  The cafe is located in the "Ruined Garden", which is the central feature of the Riad at which I am staying.  After a bit a youngish Anglo whizzed by, and I presumed that he was the mysterious Robert with whom I had booked my stay over the internet.  The Riad was recommended in a CNN travel blog, and it did not steer me wrong.  After a few moments I heard Robert exclaim, "Oh, it's Michael," which I assumed to be me, and a few moments after that he came over to introduce himself.  Nothing happens immediately here.  He explained that he had thought that someone was inquiring about a room and that he was going to have to send them away, thus he was quite delighted to discover that it was me as I had a reservation.  I didn't ask, but I wonder if he just assumed that I was Michael because I was a middle aged Anglo or if he had done the homework to google me...as he might do routinely given the international nature of his guests...whatever the cause it was completely welcoming to be identified in such a way.

He informed me that the room was being prepared and would be ready soon, so he got me a menu and wandered off to attend to an assortment of tasks as he flitted about the place.  The room was ready pretty quickly, but by this point I had been sitting and smelling an amazing banquet of flavors emanating from the open air kitchen just twenty feet or so from where I sat.  Dinner first.  And the internet.  By the time I had finished enjoying my brothy meal of Artichokes, Carrots, Potatoes and light spices I had uploaded my travel pictures and Robert had provided a map and outlined a wide range of possible entertainments for my several days in Fez.  I also have at this point the possibility of tagging along with Amine, whom I met on the train, so we'll see how that plays out.  Time to find the room.  I was getting a little chilled out in the garden, as I had only brought short sleeve shirts and it is winter here, after all.

Into the Riad, up the stairs and through an old wooden door that looks as if it was the cupboard door from some old manor or other.  No card key - no key at all.  Just an old fashioned lift latch.  Ah, but what a room.  All charm and comfort without even the smallest hint of hotel.  A carafe of drinking water and glass, gauzy curtains around the foot the bed, an old clothes cabinet and a bathroom that somehow manages to offer both modern conveniences while looking like it was carved out of sandstone.  The towel rack warms the towels!  The room has two windows that overlook the large common area, which has its own fountain, so there is a constant sound of water flowing to which I am looking forward to falling asleep.  The windows can be partially shut for privacy by closing ornately decorated wooden shutters. This arrangement explains the name of the room, which is The Mezzanine.  The room also includes a Moroccan Djellaba, which is a long robe with a hood.  Apparently these were traditionally wool, but are now made in a lighter range of textiles including cotton.  In any event, as I had not brought a long sleeve shirt, I was really pleased that this was in the room.  In short order I was out of my jeans and button up shirt and into my comfy clothes covered by my Djellaba.  There were also slippers, but they were made for much smaller feet than mine!  In addition to being visually overwhelmed by fabric and wood and actual craftsmanship, there was in the air a mixture of cooking and wood fire that makes the senses continuously peer about to see what the hell is going on.

All of that is to sum up the current state of affairs; a circumstance in which I am completely and enthusiastically comfortable after having spent about seventy-two hours on trains, planes, automobiles AND a bus to get here.  It has been an exhausting and yet intriguing journey.  Here are a few highlights.

I left St Peter Thursday morning in Katie's car.  I was actually kind of nervous.  She and Mike graciously trooped down and hauled me to the airport, which I arrived at uncharacteristically early for my flight.  I wasn't sure if the 26th would

be a busy travel day or not, but it turns out that the answer is, "not".  Lots of time to get a bowl of soup and enjoy saying goodbye to subzero temperatures.

It can be work to stay entertained on long flights.  The flight to Philadelphia was uneventful, and after a very short turnaround I was on the international flight to Madrid.  This was my first international flight and so everything about it managed to capture my imagination.  The flight left at around 6:50 and was scheduled to arrive in Madrid at 8:30, which after adjusting for the time change is a little over seven hours; however, the woman seated next to me announced that flying time would be just a bit over six hours, and this was confirmed by computer screen in front of me after we departed.  Sure enough, we hit the ground in Madrid at 7:30, fully an hour ahead of schedule.  Gotta like a tail wind.  The in flight meals were serviceable, and dinner came with wine...although had I known that the "diet" coke in Europe is a strange affair that tastes more like regular coke I might have had a final, real diet coke.  I do like my diet coke.

Using the small screen in the seat back in front of my face, I watched "Fight Club" during the flight, which I had never actually seen in its entirety.  Fascinating film.  I think I might need to see it again.  Then I discovered that I could play poker so that entertained me for a bit.  I tried to doze, but since my home time was still just barely past midnight I wasn't very successful.  Adjusting to a large time change is a challenge and I decided that since I would arrive early in the morning Madrid time that the best thing to do would be to just push on and try and make it through the day without really sleeping.  My theory was that I would then sleep a regular night's sleep on Friday night local time.  It mostly worked.

Arriving in Madrid began the unsettling and constant circumstance in which no one around me is speaking a language that I can understand.  Although the world is doing a remarkable job of providing signage that includes multiple languages as well as a range of symbols that allow some guesswork to take place, a good deal of the time I am not sure how to get where I am trying to go and even if I have already arrived.  A smarter traveler would have this all worked out with maps and detailed information about their journey, but I had somewhat intentionally left much of what I was doing a bit vague.  A fun moment, for instance, was when on the train today Amine asked me which train station I was destined for in Fez, to which I replied that I had no idea!  This challenge has, fortunately, increased over this journey...and I say fortunately because it was nice that the first couple of segments were those with the most clarity.

The easiest of the travel segments was the Metro in Madrid.  I had copied detailed instructions for taking the Metro from the airport to the train station, and the Metro was clearly marked with lots of information about the available stops and how to proceed.  I couldn't make my credit cards work in the ticket kiosk, but having exchanged some cash for Euros I soon had my Metro ticket in hand and, backpack secured, off I went to take the three lines I would need to ride to reach the train station.  The Metro was awesome.  Clean, efficient, and since it was a holiday week it was pretty quiet.  An attractive young woman on my first car proceeded to take the same route that I did.  I probably looked like a stalker since there weren't that many of us riding in the first place.  Oh, well!

The functional section of the train station in Madrid is very much like Grand Central in New York.  There is a confusing assembly of levels throughout which the various functions of the train service is distributed.  There is a large atrium area attached to the functional sections and the atrium is filled with a strange combination of tacky tourist sales booths and an attempt at a tropical setting.  The room is not heated very well, if at all, so it was a cold and dreary kind of space on this cloudy winter day.

Now the creeping anxiety of uncertainty began to work its way into my psyche.  I was to take the high speed train from Madrid to Cadiz, which I knew would be my most expensive journey and also had the potential to be sold out.  I had not purchased in advance as I wasn't sure when I would get to the train station and didn't want to lock in a time...so...who knows what I might find when I finally reached a ticket counter.  Of course, first I had to figure out how to find a ticket counter!

This is also the moment when I needed to start interacting with people.  Getting out of the airport and onto the metro had been pretty manageable using the great signage that was provided, but that was no longer the case.  Now that I was at the train depot, I was finding that very few people spoke much English and that my attempts to acquire a handful of Spanish words had not really gotten me very far.  At the last minute, realizing that my language work was not going to cut it, I had downloaded an app to my phone that has been pretty useful, but mostly it lets me look and see what I should have said if I had known what to say when I needed to have said it.  The moment is usually gone by then.  In some ways, it's not really useful to offer up a word or two in Spanish as it just encourages people to assume you have some idea of what they are talking about and they launch into Spanish with more gusto.  I've also had the amusing experience of having someone repeat the same word in Spanish over and over even though I am clearly staring at them like I wish to God I knew what it meant but no amount of repetition is likely to get us there.  On the other hand, this process of having a language encounter, and then deconstructing it with the app to figure out what I might have said does seem to be helping me to build some kind of competency.  Although I'm in Morocco now, where French and Arabic are the primary languages, I'm looking forward to getting back to Spain on Wednesday or Thursday and trying to gain more ground in this battle to communicate.

I found the ticket office without trouble, and walked in to find bunches of people standing around in what was clearly not a queue.  There is a line of ticket windows and several were open and were serving customers, but I couldn't tell how one got to be one of those customers.  I couldn't see anything that looked like instructions, and meandered a bit until I started to notice that several people were clutching little pieces of paper with a number on it.  Ah, ha!  I needed to get a number.  Now, how to do it.  Patience.  Patience.  There it is.  Watch and learn is what it's all about.  When in doubt copy someone else.  Of course, you have to hope that they are doing what you need to be doing.  I got my slip of paper and after waiting around a bit secured my train ticket to Cadiz, which I had been mis-pronouncing.

I had about two hours to kill before the train was supposed to leave, or at least that was what I thought.  Eventually I would learn that when the ticket said 12:27, that was not the time of departure, that was the date.  I spent most of the next several hours being very confused.  No one was able to explain anything to me in English, and I was sent to various locations repeatedly primarily because the first person I showed my ticket to was confused and sent me to the wrong place.  Thus proceeded the completely entertaining process of showing my ticket to folks who worked for Renfe and having them say words that I didn't understand and point me back to where I started.  Finally, the gatekeeper was replaced by a new person, who waved me into the promised land when I showed her my ticket.  Mind you, all of this happened in a state of numb exhaustion and in a train station that really didn't have any place to sit and wait until you got past the gatekeeper.  Once I did get into the waiting area I tried to get on the wrong train (again based on poor advice from folks who looked at my ticket).

Eventually I was on the train to Cadiz.  My car was filled with noisy children, so eventually I moved to the next car and enjoyed a quieter, calmer ride.  Food here is an entirely different experience.  Imagine what you might expect on an Amtrak train or any snack bar if you got a ham and cheese sandwich.  A sandwich on a Renfe train, on the other hand, involves a tasty baguette with prosciutto and a tasty zesty cheese...as in real cheese.

Enough for now.  Tomorrow I will post adventures in Cadiz and Tangier before heading out to discover the Fez Medina!

The Mask You Live In

...theatre, work, play, friends, lovers, parenting, not parenting, poker, golf, weather, alcohol, dancing, writing, and more...

So far I feel like I've talked a bit about several of these of late. The past couple of days has been preoccupied with thinking about thinking about preparing for departure, as I am leaving for Spain in about 72 hours. I need to gather some books to read while traveling, and perhaps organize the music on my iPad a bit as that will likely be the source of music while in the air. Returning to the list, though, I'm not sure where to turn next. Dancing was covered, as was writing. Parenting and not parenting is integrated into the conversation on anxiety, though there is, I suppose, more to be said there. Golf seems like a subject for fairer weather days, and theatre, work and play is really a single topic at this point, and which tends to get referenced in most of what I have to say right now. What does that leave? Friends, lovers and alcohol. A useful combination.

Actually, I was listening early Sunday morning to an offering from the The Moth that seems somewhat on point. In this audio piece, James Fallon describes his work in neuroscience. It seems that he was doing research utilizing the PET scans of psychopathic serial killers, and while doing so quite accidentally discovered that the two identifying characteristics of the PET scans of psychopaths are also found in his own PET scan. All things being more complex than they might appear on first blush, it is safe to say that he is not likely to become a serial killer. Yet, the findings were not without some significance or insight. He asked friends and family if they would describe him as somewhat sociopathic...and they generally were willing to say that, yes, although he is a nice guy and fun to be around, that he is also somewhat distant and removed...etc., etc., etc. As I was listening to this story, I was pretty sure I had heard it before, and sure enough, it did appear on NPR on a Science Friday offering...and it's also a TED Talk.

Anyway, given my divorce and a general awkwardness around women, men, children and dogs it has often been apparent to me that whatever amazing mojo some of my friends have in regard to relationships both romantic and otherwise is largely absent from my social toolbox. I can be awkward. Perhaps I am a sociopath. Perhaps I have some elements of social anxiety disorder. This is that moment when you are seated in Psych 101 as part of your early general eds for your undergraduate degree and you start imagining yourself having all of the abnormal psychology disorders. Yes, this is, indeed, that moment.

Which is where alcohol comes in. I enjoy drinking socially and periodically the demon rum gets the better of me and I wake up the next morning wondering what happened and why I am such a miserable example of humanity. At least some of this falls into the category of self-medicating for the aforementioned potential psychological disorders. It is much easier to forget that you are anxious about whether or not you are making appropriate social connections at a party or at the bar when you've lost track of most social inhibitions. Its such a fundamental element of my social persona that I rarely even realize its happening...which is why it sometimes moves from the level of modest intervention to full on altered state. On some levels it is also just a habit and a flawed perception. As I sit here I can build a convincing counter-argument showing how most of my social interactions occur without lubrication and with general success. Perhaps my fascination with social drinking is more about the entertainment of it, for there is much entertainment to be had. Probably a little of all of the above.

What is worth hanging on to, I think, is some kind of honest self-evaluation as to the level of fidelity in the person that is being presented. One of the charms of drinking has always been that the things that I have done and said are often things that I would have wished to have done in any event. Usually. Sometimes things that are honest are not also things that others wish to hear or even that you in your better judgement wish to have allowed yourself to say. Another tough atom to split. When I was younger I think it was more true that drinking allowed me to uncover things that I was working hard to keep covered. That is less true as I age. I find now that I am pretty willing to say most of what I think and feel without any assistance. I like that. It appears to be one of the perks of aging that you embrace yourself in a more complete and open way.

Digging further into the impact of social anxiety, as it feels like it lives in the middle of this maze, there is a long piece in the Atlantic about self-medicating and social anxiety disorders. The piece is by Scott Stossel and it explores his life-long struggle to manage a severe disorder. I am intrigued by the overt and explicit nature of his work to medicate his condition. While I have only the smallest sliver of the disorders he describes, I wonder about the impact of self-medicating on my physiological responses to performance anxiety (see previous posts). For now, I'm thinking in terms of just behavioral work, but drugs are out there.

Ecclesiastes

I am perfect,
I am broken beyond redemption.
I have so much wisdom that when the world presents itself to me I have no choice but to see it whole and synthesize its totality in ways that are so sublime that they make sublime blush in the pure joy of the pure joy,
I am without understanding.
I am complete within myself,
I am a need to be loved and cared for and brought within arms or folds of some unknown cocoon so large that it is uncounted even after all the stars in the sky have been counted and enumerated and categorized and labeled.
I am where I need to be doing what I need to be doing at all times,
I am lost.
I walk a path filled with color and scent and the sounds of life,
I sit in white silence brooding fear panic.
I have procreated flawlessly,
I am unable to reach beyond myself to show the path to the future or connect to the present or in any way, shape or form project meaning into eternity.
I giggle,
I weep.
I speak the truth,
I cover the light that is there to be seen in panicked fear of being seen in panicked panic I layer upon layer upon layer I am not there until you look away.
Oh, shit.  There you are.

Idle and Useless Thoughts

...theatre, work, play, friends, lovers, parenting, not parenting, poker, golf, weather, alcohol, dancing, writing, and more...

These were the promised topics on Monday.  I covered dancing on Tuesday.  Didn't write yesterday. That seems to leave a lot of uncovered ground. So it's Friday and I'm pondering the world once again from the comfort of my living room.  The cat is fed.  Coffee is brewed.  I have nowhere to go for a couple of days.  I'm feeling pretty peaceful this morning after a week of oddness and angsty moments.  It's much easier to generate writing during those moments of angst, but that's nothing new...crazy writers!  On days of peace it feels to me like everything in the world is obvious and known and that there is nothing at all to comment on or explore.  Except whether to pour that second cup of coffee. If I stick with just one I'll probably be better off, but the coffee pot is calling me with its siren song of warmth and flavor.

On Wednesday I met with John Miller-Stephany at The Guthrie to talk about the potential for my doing my MFA internship at The Guthrie during the summer of 2015.  Mostly it was just a chance to get myself on the list of folks that might participate in that way.  It was a pleasant conversation and so we'll see what might come of it.  They announce their season in the Spring and so the follow up won't happen until sometime in June or July.  What was most remarkable about the meeting is that his primary concern was that the candidate that would fit in the best would be someone who is skilled at keeping their mouth shut and being a fly on the wall.  While I am pushy and vocal when I wish to be, I think I would enjoy being a fly on the wall for a Guthrie production.  Here's hoping...

Meanwhile, one of the hoped for outcomes of this new phase in life is that I have actually been writing.  As much as I enjoy writing, I rarely took the time for it prior to this.  The demands of parenting, doing a dependable full time job, pursuing theatre, or just being neck-deep in some project or other kept me sufficiently busy that I would rarely take the time to collect my thoughts and put them in writing.  Even now it takes a fair amount of clear space before I launch into it.  During the Fall Semester, I didn't make a single entry here in the blog, partially because I was busier with school, which had it's own writing component, but also just because it would appear that writing requires most of my available mental energy.  Typically, I need to settle in and vegetate for a good while before I finally open a document and start dumping things out.  Any distraction at all can keep me away from it.

I have always described this in the past as a function of my lack of discipline.  That is certainly true, but it's not the whole truth.  The whole truth includes a growing realization that, for me, writing requires an allotment of mental energy that precludes immediate engagement with the kinds of projects I have always found myself immersed in.  The whole truth also seems to include the interesting fact that when I do not have those distractions in front of me, eventually I start to write.

This blog, of course, is a part of that process.  I restarted the blog in the summer of 2012 because I wanted to make an effort to capture this moment in a way that I will remember.  I have an atrocious memory.  Truly atrocious.  I understand that people with attachment issues have very limited memories of childhood due to their muted emotional responses to their environment.  And then, of course, there is a lifetime of enjoying alcohol, as well as a short period enjoying other mood altering substances, that probably killed a fair number of synapses that might help with long term memory.  Anyway, I can't remember shit.  So if I really want to remember something, I need to write it down.  To my surprise, in the eighteen months since I started this blog I have scribbled about 70,000 words describing my experiences and thoughts in this transition.  It's a lot of words for me to have actually taken the time to capture.  So I pulled that first set of ideas out of the blog and am now working on editing them with an eye toward creating a kind of unified whole.  I'm calling it Second Order Change.  For now.  It's fun to go back and see what I did and thought.  Of course, much of it is like this entry, just my own useless description of what I'm doing with myself, so it has little broader interest to it.  Still, a little editing here, a little excavation there.

On another writing front, one of my classes this Fall was Theatre Research, which was essentially a class dedicated to writing research papers.  The papers had to be very narrowly written to explore a particular element of theatre primarily in terms of the scholarship that preceded the paper and the possible academic hole that said scholarship might have created.  It was a challenge for me as the writing needed to be largely free of rhetorical device and focused entirely clear and direct exposition of demonstrable expert opinion (other's opinion, that is).  The instructor, Dr. Hamilton, who is a brilliant thinker and engaging instructor, describes my writing as Rococo, which was not the goal.  I worked hard to make the final paper more clear and direct, but sadly, I was informed that it was the least disciplined of the offerings that I made to the gods of theatre research.  Still, that last paper was on an educational topic that I am quite interested in, so I am working to revise it and submit it to a journal. It may be too Rococo to get accepted, but I guess I don't care.

And on another front, one of the fixtures of college theatre life about which I was ignorant is the Kennedy Center American College Theatre Festival.  This event, which takes place within a number of regional festivals followed by a national festival later in the year, is much like the International Thespian Festival that I have described earlier, except that it is for college students rather than secondary students.  Many of my peers at Minnesota State are attending the event and I was very interested in doing so as well.  Unfortunately, since my first major directing project had not yet begun, there was no natural category in which I might quality to participate.  Not wanting to be left behind, I discovered that one of the categories is Criticism.  Perfect.  I have opinions.  I wrote a review of one of our shows, submitted it to the powers that be at KCACTF and, lo and behold, I am in.  I'll spend the week of the festival taking a workshop on writing critical reviews and also review several shows for the weeklong event blog.  Should be fun.

All of which sifts together in my brain and I start to find myself describing myself as a "writer".  It's an easy title to take on as its not particularly easy to confirm.  Claiming to be a successful writer would, of course, mean that something got published.  But just being a writer requires no such validation.  Anyone can be a writer.  So, there you are, now I find that I am a writer.  The real question is, for how long and how often?

On Conquering Performance Anxiety...

When I get in front of a group and try to do something I've memorized, I generate enough nervous energy to light up most of Manhattan.  It's a bit frustrating, as I fancy myself someone who has a bit of stage presence and could be a decent performer if I could just relax and let it happen.  One of the goals of the MFA experience is to develop some skills as an actor and also to get to a better place with my performance anxiety.

Another experience this Fall that provides some insight here was working with my daughter, Katie, as she struggled with her anxiety while entering college and the dorms.  Katie suffers from panic attacks and general anxiety.  She had planned to begin her freshman year at Gustavus Adolphus College living in the dorms.  Although she had experienced some anxiety when attending community college as a part of the PSEO program through her high school, she had worked hard at learning to manage it and it appeared that she was going to be fine.  Move in day arrived and she came down to St Peter to load in to the dorm.  I was already in St Peter, as this is where I am living during my time at Minnesota State.  Although it had not originally been the plan for us to be in the same town at this point, it turned out to be a useful coincidence.

I had a class to teach on move in day, so I arrived at he dorm after all of the college paraphernalia had been hauled up to the dorm room, including the refrigerator.  I would have felt guilty but the school arranges for the football team to hang out around the dorms and help the freshmen unload and haul things to their rooms.  It's very welcoming.  There are also crazy people all over the place cheering and whooping and hollering in welcome chants and greetings.  It is all very exciting.

Katie, on the other hand, was not excited.  Teary-eyed and sniffling, she glumly moved from activity to activity with us.  It was clear that her anxiety was overwhelming her.  At the same time, she was connecting with people left and right.  By the time we left her that afternoon she had two administrators and a couple of students dedicated to making sure she was happy and settled.

What followed was several weeks of anxiety, tears, panic and determination.  Although her anxiety was intense and consuming, she went to all her classes, attempted to participate in a range of social activities, made lots of friends, and learned how to utilize the campus counseling office.  By the end of the third week, though, it seemed clear that the only way for her to survive this experience was to get out of the dorm and move home.  Fortunately, home was my townhouse within sight of the campus.  Despite this, the stress of trying to be successful in school was still more than she could handle and the daily battle was to keep her impulse to run home to Plymouth and drop out of school in check.  While intellectually she knew that her anxiety was not rationale, there was no way for her to prevent the attendant consequences of her feelings.

Enter psychotropic drugs.

On a Thursday afternoon around 1PM, Katie took her first dose of an anti-anxiety medicine.  By 2:30, she was laughing and playful and unconcerned about failure.  It was an extraordinary transformation.  During the weeks that followed she would have moments of panic and even once had to use the Valium that they had prescribed for intense attacks, but her general level of anxiety slowly declined.

Quick story about the Valium.  Katie left the townhouse to go over to campus for a review session for her first mid-term.  To this point, she had been successful with her classes, but she was anxious about this new thing...mid-terms.  She went to the review session.  It went well, and when she returned to her car afterward she shut the door and immediately began to shake and sob uncontrollably.  I can't imagine how this feels...but it would be very frightening, indeed.  She wisely immediately took the medicine that she had been given for this kind of a moment.  It was the first time using this medicine and she had no idea how it would work.  She drove home and came crashing through the door sobbing and incoherent.  After a few moments I was able to puzzle out what had happened and as she continued to sob, "I took the pill but it's not working!!!" I pointed out that it had only been about eight minutes since she had taken it.  Sure enough, within about seven or eight minutes more she was calm, and then a bit giggly, and then clearly stoned.  Drugs...gotta love 'em.

By the end of the Fall she had cut her dose in half and is now ready to return to the dorm after the winter break.  Of course, it is not just about the medicine.  As school became a known experience and the rational fear of failure was replaced with a rational knowledge of her own efficacy, the physiological feedback loop of anxiety and panic became less likely to occur in the first place.  There will come a time when living at college and going to class will not be a life experience that she fears, and so she will probably eliminate the medicine completely.  Or maybe not.  There are lots of people who live better lives because these drugs put them in a healthier place to engage the challenges of daily living.

An interesting side-effect of all this has been that I have been able to re-evaluate some of my own behaviors in light of Katie's experience.  I don't experience the same kind of anxiety, but I do have my own bundle of irrational physiological responses.  When confronted with performance, I shake and lose focus.  When confronted with interpersonal conflict or intense relational moments, I obsess and experience great physical anxiousness.  Everyone does some of this to some extent or another, but is useful to noodle around which of our behaviors seem to fall within normal parameters and which seem to be a bit more neurotic.

So, back to performance anxiety.  As I expected, increasing my opportunities to perform and getting some training is, in fact, helpful.  Voice lessons and course work that focuses on the techniques of performance are extraordinarily useful in normalizing performance. By the end of the term I had, for the first time, sung a song in performance without losing the words and with some rudimentary expression.  I had also done a performance piece (which I was able to read rather than memorize) that received the highest grade in the class.  Memorization remains a challenge, but I suspect I will find opportunities to normalize that as well.  I will always struggle with memorization a little bit, as my brain does not hold onto words very well, but it is exciting to think about becoming more adept.

And, so, finally, I think back to yesterday's post about dancing and the idea that vulnerability leads to innovation, creativity, and change.  It seems clear to me that the act of being vulnerable in learning is the very act that allows learning, which is essentially a kind of change, to occur.  It is the same concept that educators speak about when they discuss the Zone of Proximal Development.  How much do you already know?  How much more can you internalize within this particular moment of learning?  How vulnerable do you, the student, need to be to make that change?  Educators forget the importance of creating an environment in which students feel free to be vulnerable.  It is that vulnerability of the student that is essential to learning.

I may shake when I perform, but I'll eventually do it with style!

There is More Than One Way to Dance...

A thing that many other people know about me but which I have only now accepted as truth is that I can't dance.  I like to dance and in my youth I did some dancing, which I am sure was awkward as hell.  Frankly, I'm pretty much physically awkward all the way around.  This is not to say that I'm not coordinated, but rather that I wear that awareness of being seen so tightly around myself that even when I am alone I feel like someone is watching.  Well, and when it comes to moving with grace I am not, in fact, coordinated.  I can move surprisingly quickly and with some agility (for a big guy who is getting older) but if I have to do it with intention (rather than as a reflex) I'm pretty much lost.  As soon as I move past that moment of reflex so that there is any opportunity for the pre-frontal cortex to get involved in the process, it's over.

I know this more deeply now because one of my classes this Fall in my MFA program was beginning tap.  It's not really a class that I had to take.  As a directing candidate I don't have to take any movement classes, but I was interested in seeing if I could get any better at moving.  In my heart of hearts I believed that if I invested some energy into learning, that I COULD DANCE.  Sadly, it is not so.

Oh, I can do some of the mechanics, sort of.  But when it comes to letting go and really engaging the musicality of what I was trying to do, it was simply not happening...except when I moved backwards, sort of...whatever.

There was a lot of laughter involved in this process.  The rest of the class was mostly freshmen and most of them were dancers at some level or another, so I was very much the quirky old guy in the room.  The whole thing was rather hilarious and I had a blast doing it.  You don't have to be good at something to love the process.

This awareness of the world is something that runs throughout my reflections about learning and growth and being whole.  It's popped up before in this blog and it will continue to do so as I move forward.  It has to do with so much more than dancing.  It runs deeper into the physical act of swimming in the world.  Of being a part of some weird physiological network that's filled with little roadblocks and little expressways.  Connections seem to start and stop in weird fits ands starts.  Like hugging.  Such a simple and yet significant act.  I mean, of course I hug people.  I hug my kids...though probably not enough.  I hug friends.  Hugs are awesome.  But in public, or when it's part of a ritualized moment.  I don't know, it's awkward. Theatre people hug a lot, so it's something I can play around with and no one thinks I'm weird...which is useful. Hugging is absolutely essential.

Being a part of a network is essential.  It's a part of Actualization (see yesterday's post).  Hugs are the synapses of that network.  It purges angst, establishes intimacy, communicates concern, spreads joy.  All those things.  Hugging is good.  Dancing is good.  A touch on a shoulder.  Watching from the periphery can sometimes be hard to avoid.  There are echoes of vulnerability in this thread that connect to an August post as well.  At that time I was reflecting on Brene Brown's Ted Talks.

Another comment resonated with so much of what I have been reflecting on.  "Vulnerability is the birthplace of innovation, creativity, and change." 

And this idea of dancing as a function of vulnerability, and even more that it is a crucible in which innovation, creativity and change can occur seems very attractive to me.  It suggests that rather than dismiss this experience as evidence that this is not a skill set in which I will find myself, I should look to the ways in which it creates a space for change.  The act of vulnerability is not the same as exhibiting proficiency.  On the contrary, high levels of proficiency reduce the degree of vulnerability, so it really is in those things that we are least proficient that we create the greatest potential for innovation, creativity, and change.  Well, there's a little flaw in the logic there...but the core of the idea remains: without pushing beyond the known vulnerability is not available.

So there should be more to the lesson of this class than the honest realization that I am not suited to dancing.  What might I have learned from living in a soup in which I was not comfortable?  It's a part of being human.

Dance like no one is watching.  Yup, not gonna happen.  But somehow you have to dance anyway.  It's just that for some of us, we have no choice but to dance like everyone is watching.  Of course, none of that will keep me from continuing to try and dance!  Sorry, y'all!  Tomorrow...singing!

The Art of Making Decisions

Greetings World!

It's been a little under four months since my last post, which represents the time spent completing one semester of graduate studies on my MFA in Directing.  Lots to report, lots to think about.

This morning what I'm thinking about is the whole idea of decision making.  It's easy to say, "well, that was a bad (or good) decision."  Yet, I am becoming more aware of the extent to which the idea of a bad or good decision is extraordinarily more complex than a simple dichotomy.  We make decisions constantly, most of which are small and the consequences are enjoyed or endured quickly...often to be forgotten in relatively short order.  Some decisions become habits, with their own peculiar consequences.  Some decisions are made methodically, others in the context of emotional stress or under the influence of mood altering drugs or mood altering people.  Some decisions are dismissed as irresponsible, though those same decisions might be judged as adventurous or freeing.

There is a calculus here.  A complex set of variables interacting with one another to lead us down a particular path.

I recently described my decision to attend Minnesota State University and obtain my MFA in Directing as the best decision I ever made, and I believe that to be true.  At the same time, within the calculus of decision making, it is on shaky ground in the "Responsible" routine of that program.  The Responsible calculation is somewhat suspect, I think.  While it comes with a range of useful benefits, it has the potential to influence us in ways that need close examination.

Basic Needs + Cognitive Bias + Actualization + Other's Needs + Reality + Responsible = Decision

Hmmm...something like that, I guess.

Basic Needs -- Well, sure, you want to make decisions that ensure that you can pay your bills, whatever those are, so that you can live with a roof and have food.  For some of us, those basic needs are defined in ways that have an extraordinary influence on the decision.  If you include a large home in the suburbs in your basic needs, then the decision making path narrows considerably.  For myself, I want a comfortable place to live, though that can be small and unadorned.  It should be warm in the winter and cool in the summer.  Since I'm living in Minnesota it includes a garage, though that lives at the edge of basic and could be jettisoned in preference to a stronger element in the Actualization category.  Again, for myself, since I have been steadily downsizing in recent years the basic needs function is shrinking.

Cognitive Bias -- There are several elements here.  We come to the decision making process with a large repository of preconceived notions about what we should and should not do in specific situations.  These were foisted upon us by our parents, our friends, the world...and they are ridiculously difficult to unpack.  In some cases this element is so powerful that no other elements are ever allowed into the calculation...we make a decision because that is what is required and damn the consequences.  The other piece of this has to do with how our cognitive processes are functioning at the decision making moment.  Since the various Functions of the decision making calculator are differently affected by things like being angry or frightened or trashed or tired, the cognitive context of that moment of decision is rather significant.  This, I suppose, is the portion of the calculus that recommends a lengthy decision making process for more important decisions.  The wider the range of cognitive contexts within which a decision is considered, the less influential any given context will be.  Personal values also play a factor in this function though its hard to separate values as a concept from the first two elements.  To what extent do our values pretty much reflect what we've learned from others and by how we feel?  The distinction may be impossible.

Actualization -- I think this might belong first, or last.  Or maybe this is the external arbiter of whether a decision is good or bad.  This factor is the extent to which we make choices that help us BE HAPPY.  Of course, happiness is influenced by lots of interactions with the other factors and is not to be confused with BE SELFISH.  How do the things that we decide help us to understand ourselves fully and to maximize the opportunities to grow?  Actualization also includes that strange category of things that we often describe as WANTS, which is separate from basic needs but can be confused in that way.  Perhaps this category also includes the basic needs just above the need for safety...such as love and belonging, freedom, and personal agency.  Balance lives here as well.  When our decisions as a whole are balanced actualization is more achievable.

Other's Needs -- There are a wide range of influences having to do with the needs of the people in our lives.  This is not a bad thing.  As a parent, spouse, friend, lover, etc. we hold in our hands opportunities to strengthen relationships and support the people we love.  Sometimes this factor sits in opposition to our own needs, and yet if it is ignored there is the likelihood of significant cognitive dissonance.  Making decisions which somehow harm the people we love is very difficult.  Sometimes necessary, sometimes inevitable, but always painful.

Reality - So, deciding to get rich through a lottery is not likely to be a great decision.  You know, be realistic.

Responsible -- Ooohhhh...here's a tough one.  Who gets to decide what are responsible decisions or what constitutes responsibility in a decision.  Sometimes its easy.  A parent is clearly responsible for the basic needs of their child.  First priority.  An employee is responsible to their employer.  There is a cascading flowchart of responsibilities that affect our decisions at all times.  Again, like thinking about the needs of others, our responsibility to others can easily be in conflict with the choices we might make that would benefit our own actualization.

Dunno.  It's complicated.

Anyway, that's on my mind this morning.  I am now officially between semesters, so I hope to post something every day for the next month or so.  Some of that time will be sitting here reflecting on the Fall...thoughts on theatre, work, play, friends, lovers, parenting, not parenting, poker, golf, weather, alcohol, dancing, writing, and more...and then from the 26th through the 10th there will be another round of travel journal entries.

Happy Holidays!

Snow Falling on Detritus
Out the window scattered remains
angular
broken
guilty
useless
until snow fall
all is pure and unbroken again.