I'm Starting to Think I Need a Few Memos

How to Be Happy: Another Memo to Myself

You start with your own body
then move outward, but not too far.
Never try to please a city, for example.
Nor will the easy intimacy
in small towns ever satisfy that need
you have only whispered in the dark.
A woman is a beginning.
She need not be pretty, but must know
how to make her own ceilings
out of all that's beautiful in her.
Together you must love to exchange
gifts in the night, and agree
on the superfluity of ribbons,
the fine violence of breaking out
of yourselves. No matter,
it's doubtful she will be enough for you,
or you for her. You must have friends
of both sexes. When you get together
you must feel everyone has brought
his fierce privacy with him
and is ready to share it. Prepare
yourself though to keep something back;
there's a center in you
you are simply a comedian
without. Beyond this, it's advisable
to have a skill. Learn how to make something:
food, a shoe box, a good day.
Remember, finally, there are few pleasures
that aren't as local as your fingertips.
Never go to Europe for a cathedral.
In large groups, create a corner
in the middle of the room.

—Stephen Dunn

Where Does the Time Go

So lately I've been in my basement doing creative science experiments in an attempt to actually clone something useful.  No, it's not bacon, although my love of pork makes me feel like this would be a Nobel worthy breakthrough.  The item I actually desire cloning:  time!!

And while I'm not literally doing any REAL experiments, nor do I actually have a basement, my mind has been hyperactive in the sub-levels, attempting to decipher some way that I can multiply my minutes.  Time is one of those rare commodities that immediately gains the priceless tag, because once gone, it can never come back.  We spend a multitude of hours attempting to log out schedules and plans with the realization that every second counts.  According to experts, time management consultants (yes, this is an actual job) are paid between $43,500 - $94,000.  Seems to be a lot of money to pay someone to help organize your time, but it reiterates people's obsession with having enough time.

24 hours.  It sounds like plenty, but most days are spent wasting time.  Debating with the warm spot in the center of your pillow over whether that last alarm was the preset snooze alarm, or the 'get up before you're late' one.  Idling in front of bathroom mirrors, contemplating if that last piece of cake really caused the disaster that is your love handles.  Finishing off the last few splashes of hot water in a shower that's already lasted five minutes too long.  Forcing yourself to soak up insane amounts of depression locked inside the headlines of the a.m news.  Remembering that you meant to buy coffee filters yesterday, but ran out of time on your lunch break, so now you're forced to tear paper towels in half and wedge them into the coffee maker accordingly.   Pressing your horn with the same intensity that the vein in your forehead throbs, while angrily cursing at the driver of the car in front of you, who is also gridlocked in traffic with you, but refuses to creep up into the extra three feet of space to give you the false security that progress is being made.  Creating an extra smoke break during your walk to the 10 a.m. company meeting.  Stalling for extra seconds as you try to explain to your boss why you're late, without him smelling the fresh cigarette smoke on your breath.  Gossiping for 45 minutes during your one hour lunch break, about something or someone that, as soon as lunch has ended, you'll wondering why you wasted so much time of your life discussing.  Daydreaming about a better job with a higher pay rate during the time allotted to prepare for your weekly presentation.  Driving home at snail's pace because your shoddy GPS doesn't warn you that there is a bottleneck on its suggested route.  Remembering, three steps through your front door, that you were supposed to pay the light bill, yesterday.  Fighting the urge to do menial things, which seem to pop up in abundance and overwhelm from the very second that you decide that you have something more important to do.  Sleep.

Okay, maybe sleep is needed, but I think you get the point.

Before you know it, that same familiar, but confusing alarm is going off, on the next morning, and you can't remember one productive thing that you managed to accomplish.

So what are the solutions?  Well, I am by far no expert when it comes to time management.  Most days, I feel like I only accomplish the bare minimum, if anything at all, thanks in large part to my budding insomnia.  And even those things get done sluggishly.  But I do understand the major problems and can see where improvements can be made.

Number 1:  Do the important things.  Everything else can be divided into days.

Who am I to determine what's important in your life?  No one really.  But I think it's easy to see where anything that necessitates your daily living or personal well being should take precedent over extracurricular things.  For example, by all means go to work.  It's probably the only way you'll keep a roof over your head, and with this economy, even that's not a foregone conclusion.  Skipping work to say go on that trip to Florida you've always been planning would be a bad mismanagement of time.  So basically, prioritize all the things that are currently taking up your time.  If they are not necessary, why are they receiving such huge proportions?

Number 2:  Plan for the unavoidable.

I was cruising the blog world earlier today and came across a great read that sort of  relates to this.  From Mrs. Lubbers at A Right Gapesnest, came this quip about life with a margin:

My understanding of the concept is that people function best when they have margin in their lives—space and time that is unaccounted for. This way, when something takes more of your time and effort than you had expected, you have some leeway in which to deal with it. Minor catastrophes and time-sucks can be dealt with.

On the other hand, many people today schedule their lives without any margin at all. (Can you see me raising my hand?) No margin in time, so I'm always racing from one activity to the next. And no margin in mental tasks, so I get worn down because I'm constantly thinking and evaluating and planning something else. When you're living with no margin, the smallest glitch can cause a ripple effect and suddenly it feels like you've completely lost control.

(You should seriously read her entire post, and her blog, as it is very interesting and well written....okay, back to the topic at hand....)

I am totally one of these people who live without margin in my life, physically or mental.  As I glance around the room, I see a growing pile of laundry that I should have taken care of two days ago.  Note to self:  Do laundry after posting this.  Mentally, there are a wildly strewn and discombobulated assortment of thoughts, tasks, ideas, and stories that make my unfinished laundry seem like a neat freak's wet dream.  Which means that there is absolutely no room for those random things that come my way.  They delay me, because my mind is in no shape to deal with them, plus I'm petrified by them anyway, since I fear I don't have the time.  And then comes the 'losing control' feeling.  Which leads to too many nights drinking old coffee, smoking cigarette number four, while contemplating how it's all falling apart.

Such a long way to suggest that it is a good idea to plan for the unexpected.  Free up some mental space.  If you're still working on project 11, there is no reason you should already be mentally focused on project 93.  Yes, my mind can multi-process as well.  But I'm one of the people who actually realizes that it can only utilize 10% of it's true capacity.  Until those guys at MIT come up with the formula for hot wiring that other 90%, I shall think appropriately.

Also try to have events scheduled at least an hour apart, to factor in things such as lateness, accidents, or the random streaker across your front lawn at 6 a.m.  I for one am bad about doing this.  I schedule things back to back to back, which always leaves this feeling that you're running to and from, but never getting anything done.  It's hard to focus on what's been accomplished if you're already fretting about being late for something else.

Number 3:  Don't bite off more than you can chew

For those of you like me, who think you can accomplish EVERYTHING, this one is going to be hard.  Throughout the week, you schedule things, accept responsibilities, and confidently assure that you'll meet all deadlines, until you suddenly realize by Thursday that you suddenly have about a month's worth of commitments which all need to be completed by Monday morning.  This is how normally rational people begin to act insane.  Panic.  Cut corners.  Give 75% instead of 100.  Panic more.  Become stressed.  Bail on projects.  Look bad, in the eyes of others.

But all of this could have been avoided.  It's okay to say no to that interesting new assignment, when you already have three due this week.  The only people who'll hold it against you are those recently burnt out individuals, who are just hoping you soon join them.

So there you have it.  My take on time management, as well as three steps that I think will help get your time back on track.  Hopefully these will get things going, and I'd love feedback from others who find themselves facing similar issues.  Because while 24 hours seems like it should be plenty, I constantly find myself hearing and saying:

"Where the hell does all the time go?....."

Marcus Jamison, the Rare Poet

Rare Groove, Feb. 15, 2011

Let me begin by saying that this erratic posting is very disconcerting to me, so I would hope that it's irritating you all as well. I will do better. I must. Now, on to the music...



Slum Village ft. J. Dilla --- Earl Flinn

Just a little for the hip-hop heads. Slum Village is that fire, son!!! Sorry my mind went Brooklyn for a minute. (Something about J. Dilla screams BK, even though he is Detroit's finest...or maybe it's just me?) But this beat is so out of this world, thanks to Madlib, who Dilla fans already know about.

Marcus Jamison, the Rare Poet

Rare Groove, Feb. 13, 2011

Andres Diaz playing the Prelude from Bach's Cello Suite No. 1 in G Major

Classical music has a unique way of speaking to me like no other music.  There is this sense that the instruments are speaking.  I listen.  I attempt to decipher their words.  It is gripping.  It is intense.  And always, it is beautiful.

I feel something building in this one.  Like the strings are speaking on something yet to come.  There is an anxiousness.  Fast then slow, fast then slow.  Closing my eyes, I think of colors.  Bright, agitated colors, blinking across the darkness in my mind, similar to the scene from The Soloist when Jamie Foxx's character listens to the orchestra rehearse.  The end of this sounds like a layered promise.  Not only will something be there, but it will continue to be there.  At least until it's over.  And oddly, this makes me smile.

Marcus Jamison, the Rare Poet

Crappy Husband, Good Person (Time to Get All Analytical...)

"....you were a crappy husband.  but you are a good person."

For those of you who are House fans, you realize that these were words spoken to Dr. Chris Taub, an adulterous surgeon currently preparing for a divorce from his wife Rachel.

I can't help but feel that I can relate to him.  But not in the adultery category.  Although I have cheated in the past, a fact that I am certainly not proud of, I have never been married.  This doesn't excuse cheating, because commitment is supposed to be commitment, whether you 'put a ring on it' or not.  But my ability to relate to this character has nothing to do with infidelity.  It's about selfishness.

I realize that I want all of the trappings of love, without giving myself completely.  Maybe 85%, maybe even 90, but never completely.  I literally keep one foot over the threshold of the figurative door to the respective woman's heart.  In case I have to run.  Which is often.  And yet, I find myself still wanting her to want me.  To need me.  To allow me to please her and equally please me.  To act as if she can separate being my lover with being in love with me, in case I need to make a clean break.  Reading this aloud to myself, it sounds stupider than just about anything I can think of and yet, it is often where I've found myself in relationships.  Urging her to stay, while looking for any sign to leave.  This is the part of me that must change.

Step one is perhaps the most difficult.  Setting up the 'No Vacancy' sign, and doing the solo thing for a while. Most people are probably laughing and stating how easy it is to be alone.  But for me, who has bounced from one serious relationship to the next since I was about 19, the very idea seems to start killing something in me.

Blue Cafe, Derrick WIlliams

Call it a cafe with permanent blues, and I'm the headlining act.  I guess this feeling should be appropriate.  Especially since I feel like I've caused more emotional damage than that guy who used to play Screech.  But being alone creates within me a similar feeling, nearly as bad as witnessing all of the heartbreak I have caused.  And while it helps, saying none of this was intentional, I realize that the damage has already been done.  I think of some of the women from my past.  And how broken/affected they are.  It makes me wonder why I don't feel that same what.  What in the world is wrong with me?

Struggle, Derrick Williams

I'm in a one man battle, against myself.  These types of fights usually take place when I'm alone. And they test everything that I am, all while challenging the very idea of the man I want to become.  I keep wondering how much fight I have left in me.  Maybe I should just surrender to being that husk of a person I keep turning myself into.  Then, I can merely float from heart to heart, sampling, but knowing I'll never fully surrender.

Sounds like Shakespearean tragedy.  And if there's anything we've learned from that it's this:  The guy in love either kills himself, is murdered, goes crazy, or winds up stranded somewhere alone.  Perhaps my mind already embraces a bit of this tragedy.

Marcus Jamison, the Rare Poet