Mood: Crap (insert emoticon here)

Feeling quite bleh today. I woke tired and have continued to be so all day. I’m feeling a little sad too, but there’s nothing really that bad in my life. Perhaps I’m just feeling the effects of a far too busy “professional” life with not enough “personal”?

The next few weeks are, unfortunately, stuffed with Things to do. Which is particularly boring because of all the things, none of them include just being with my partner for a period of time that doesn’t include professional intrusions and other hassles.

I would gladly tip all these professional problems off a cliff right now. The amount of effort involved with all of them versus the positives that come out are getting difficult to balance. Some things that have been easy to set-up have involved so much negative behaviours, obsession and politics that I may as well not have done them in the first place.

So why do I persist?

Is it ego? God I hope not.

Is it for “the good of others”? Oh, certainly (though this in itself is assumption and arrogance); there are so many holes in services where I’m volunteering that it’s less of a sieve and more of a pit. The holes have joined up with one-another and there is very little actually happening. However, this is observational evidence only; the reasons for this state are complex and are worth a PhD student’s thesis. The reasons are also tempered by my own experience, and not a commentary on those who are out there trying to make a difference.

Do I presume to be a leader, to drag things kicking-and-screaming into a new paradigm, one where good things can happen without being torn down? Am I so arrogant?

Is it because I’m simply stupid and don’t know when I’m running up against a wall? Hah. Probably. The feeling of smacking my head against these bricks seems to have awakened a certain awareness in me that this sort of thing is ultimately futile. There is the idea of bashing my head against a wall to break through, and on the final pre-fatal thud, seeing out of the corner of my eye an open door. Yet I don’t see an open door right now. All I can see are bricks, and blood-stained ones at that.

All I know is that right now I’m feeling out of sorts; I’m trying hard to build something and the harder I try the harder it becomes. But standing back and letting things occur is what everyone does all the time, and nothing happens.

Am I truly fooling myself? Am I arrogant in my presumption that I can help change the community through actions rather than words? Am I simply a fool who should put all this down and concentrate instead on the things that TRULY matter: my relationship, my studies, my writing and my own happiness?

Has this situation finally have brought home how foolish I actually am? That I, Lisa Sinclair, have stomped into a room and tipped over the furniture in a rush to achieve… what exactly? Why am I in this community again?

I stepped away because I needed to find my own way. I saw the people in it, and saw the difficulties I would face. I kept away for 10 years. Then I came back, with a fateful telephone call. That call led me to my partner, and I found some very good friends. It led me on a new path, one I hadn’t considered before.

I’m at a junction. I’m broke. I’m a student in a course I have doubts about actually leading somewhere useful for future work. I run a support group that runs coffee and catchups and is expanding into events.

Yet all I want is to have a quiet, happy, creative life. I want to spend time with my partner that doesn’t include bringing up professional (support group) issues and challenges. I want to be creative. I don’t want politics and roadblocks. I don’t want to find myself as the meat in the sandwich between people. I don’t want to be a people manager, nor do I want to be hassling people. I want this to be simple. I want it to be easy. I want it to be fulfilling for everyone involved. And right now, it’s anything but.

This feels like work. And I don’t even have the satisfaction of knowing that despite how futile things might seem, at least I have a paycheque at the end of the week. That’s because it’s entirely unpaid. I’ve worked like a mad thing on this for 7 months and for what? A neat website, a bunch of coffee catchups and an event which has had severe criticism and politics heaped on it, and which hasn’t even happened.

This rant was brought to you by a Grande Soy Chai Latte with an extra pump, a fake ham and cheese roll and a feeling of unhappiness which will undoubtedly pass at some stage soon.

*sigh*

Back to my essay.

I’m alone as I write this, in the loungeroom. Well, alone except my cat.

My amazing partner has departed and is driving home to nonna.

It feels again like this weekend has been fraught with difficulties merely for the simple fact of trying something. People have been reactionary and melodramatic which has created another rather boring flurry of emails on a group I belong to.

I only stay to support two people. I need to synchronise those circles again.

My main issue, as always, is that this has been an unnecessary waste of time and energy. Something very, very simple has been blown out of all proportion by the same people that usually blow things out of proportion.

Ignoring them was my first instinct, but through some discussion, I concluded that it would be good to clarify a few items and move on.

It’s become boring again. I don’t like boring. I want to have things nice, I want to spend my energy on things that MATTER to me. My partner is number one; I’m equal pegging with them by the way! The support group I’m running is high up as well, and there’s some cool things going on there.

My worry is that it’s become ten times as complicated as it needs to be because, jesus christ, people are so bloody touchy! There’s this possessiveness about their attitudes and behaviour that borders on obsessiveness. There’s attitude that they are in charge and dictate terms to everyone else (while denying they don’t). There’s a whole cartload of dirty laundry behind them and it’s stifling everything that’s being proposed, everything that’s being achieved.

And I’m sick to death of it. This was supposed to be fun for fucks sake. This was supposed to be engaging and interesting! It’s a shit fight every time we try to do something. Even removing from them has caused further shit fighting. What the Fuck?!

It’s through these kinds of attitudes and behaviours that people burn out. They find themselves not caring one way or another. Their spirit and their drive are ruthlessly crushed by others who are unable or unwilling to let them DO the things they want to. It is precisely this reason that more and more groups are being created in the state: people get stifled and ignored and crushed, and so they go off and do things their own way.

I for one am sick to death of this.

Sitting here watching an old James Bond movie for the sheer hell of it while faffing online and chatting with my fab partner.

It’s been a decent kind of day – lots of things done which is basically my measure of “good” when I’m on my own and it’s a weekday.  I have, however, kept going into the evening which is not according to plan. Certainly I’ve gotten a lot of neat things happening on a website I look after, but after a while it is gilding the lily; certainly things I’ve done tonight could have just as easily been done tomorrow.

After a while the internet pales into boredom – news sites hold no interest anymore other than odd articles of vague interest, other sites once held in high regard for interesting content have fallen into the less interesting and everywhere I browse these days seems terribly dull. I should just go to bed, but await… what?

It’s 10pm and well into time I should be either horizontal or close to it, sleeping or nodding off. I have sated an unexpected appetite with a toasted cheese sandwich with some tomato sauce and cracked pepper; hardly the snackfood of the healthy but certainly it has stopped the pangs of hunger.

Really, I should go to bed. I should grab my hot water bottle and retire to the West wing, or more accurately, the other side of the loungeroom wall. What is holding me here other than a hot processor and a heater, and my cat who dozes in front of the fire while his ears grow more and more pink from heat exposure.

I think it’s time to retire. This decision having been made now becomes hard to implement because of the pull of the computer screen upon which these words are being typed; a white display inside which the words unfold in an order being determined by the movement of fingers and the passing time.

This night must draw to a close however. I must go to bed. To sleep, perchance to suffer insomnia at 4am. Or perhaps not.

Night all!

I’ve just found a nice solution.

The problem: Facebook events had to be manually added to google calendar, which was then added via plugin to a website I maintain.

The calendar ALSO didn’t display anything but the one google calendar, and there were several being subscribed to.

Get a google calendar account and add the events

1. get a google calendar account

2. use this procedure to link the facebook events to google calendar

Note: Don’t log out for now!

Install and configure google calendar events

1. log into your wordpress site

2. install the google calendar events widget

3. under Settings > Google Calendar Events, click Add Feed

4. add your feed title (eg. my facebook events)

5. in Google calendar, under Other Calendars, click the calendar you want to add, and in the sub-menu, click Calendar Settings

6. in the Calendar settings page, at the bottom click the XML link, and copy the text there.

7. back in your wordpress install, in the Add Feed page, into the Feed URL paste the XML link

8. Click Add Feed.

9. In the Google Calendar Events page, take note of the feed ID (it will be 1, 2 or whatever)

NOTE: repeat this process for each calendar you want to have displayed on your site.

Add the widget to your site sidebar

1. In the left sidebar, click Appearance > Widgets

2. In the Widgets page, in Available Widgets, drag and drop Google Calendar Events to your sidebar

3. In the Google Calendar Events widget, enter the ID of your feed (from the Google Calendar Events page). You can add others, separated by a comma

4. Enter the title of the widget (eg. events), and choose how you want it to display (eg. grid).

5. click save.

I’m so unfocussed.

I’m not present.

All the time my mind is elsewhere. And I’m losing grip on the here and now.

I lost a web design job today because I wasn’t focussed on what I really needed, preferring to continue being embroiled in petty squabbling, with my circle of concern far wider than the circle of influence.

I’m halfway out of the dark. And awareness has returned. Albeit a little later than I’d have liked.

So, here I am in July. I have a great many things and people going for me. I have an amazing partner. I have my health. I have some good friends. I’m going well in my course.

I need to focus on what really matters to me. And I’ve lost track of it – this happens again and again.

My creativity has suffered during the last month; the energy has been spent — I hardly believe I’m saying this again — on things that frustrate and annoy me. It’s felt like I’ve been back in full-time work again, the sheer utter futility of the near past situation has a parallel in my last two full time contract roles with InsuranceLine and Telstra. In both these, my circles of concern and influence were so far out of whack as to be light-years apart. I cared too much about things I could not influence, but yet wasn’t aware enough to pull my energies back to focus on the things and people that really, truly matter to me.

I’ve dropped the ball with my relationship – my partner, ever patient may yet deny this, but I can’t help feeling this is the case. I’ve kept my mind on the annoying things that drag energy away from me like a black-hole, rather than on them, the person I love, my partner and the person I want to spend my life with.

My vow on this cold, damp night, from my warm loungeroom in Fitzroy North is this: My circles will synchronise here and now. I shall henceforth withdraw all energy from the things I cannot influence, and concentrate instead on being present, mindful and here for the people I love, the things I need to do, and my own survival.

Funny, I feel much better now.