Reflections on 2016 - Part Two

In the first "Reflections" post I talked about some of the things that went AWOL in the past year, but I noted that overall, I think 2016 has actually been rather positive, although judging by the sentiments of some folks I know, this puts me in the minority. Not every year can be kittens and sunshine for everyone, I suppose, and 2017 may turn out to be a clusterfuck of biblical proportions for everyone with the inauguration of His Highness, King Donald the Trumpet. That's a topic for another day, however, and instead let's look at some of the things that went well in blackbird-land.

The Not-Shit Pile

Ignition

In the previous post, I talked about a certain person who I ultimately concluded was someone that I needed to remove from my consciousness. However, I also said that I am still quite grateful for the fact that this person and I crossed paths due to the outcome for my mental circuitry. I started making art again this year, and all of that was due to a conversation with said person about creative outlets. I was reminded that it's still possible for me to be completely batshit crazy (in a good way) over someone, despite thinking for the longest time that the parts of my brain dedicated to emotion were just burned out beyond repair. Even though I'm no longer batshit crazy over this person, and she's made it clear through her actions that she's not interested in being friends with a blackbird, all of that is OK. I had a feeling from the time that I met her that there was some important reason why we met, and I think, at least for me, it was to get that emotional and creative reignition, followed by the realization that there were a lot of parts of my life that I'd been neglecting and that I should do something about that.

Blackbird Got His Zen Back

Yeah, so I was batshit crazy over a girl^[1], and it didn't work out, and various other things went wrong here and there throughout the year, but as I look at my mental state right now, I feel like I'm in a good place. I'm not saying that I'm unflappable and that nothing will ever piss me off again, but I do feel very calm and stable and confident that I can deal with whatever the next shitstorm is that comes my way without getting stressed out about it. There just aren't many things in my life right now that are causing anxiety, and the things which are suboptimal just don't bother me. I'm also choosing not to be bothered by the things I can't influence, like politics.

Anti-Social Blackbird is Social?

I got out of the apartment quite a bit this year, sometimes just doing things by myself and venturing in to the city or traveling somewhere for some event, but I also, consciously or unconsciously, also made it a point to do a lot more things with friends. N and I had our usual sushi outings, I saw R1 and R2 here, and R1 in New York, plus trips to Phoenix to see various folks (M & J, T, H, L, P, B, and G, just to name a few) and a diversion to Denver to see my Colorado psytrance family. Those cats are a serious bunch of good peeps, and I'm glad to have met all of them. Oh, and I just went on a ski trip with a coworker that I had never met before, and I'm contemplating whether or not I will attempt to ask cute girl R3 (I know way too many people whose names begin with R) to go make a few runs with me next time I go to Tahoe. I don't know what all of this means; I still don't like "people" as a whole, but I do find individual persons interesting and worth talking to. I guess the thing is that since now it's just me and the cats, I'm better able to calibrate just how much interaction with other people I need and/or want and then adjust accordingly. There are certainly nights when I'd prefer to be at home doing nothing but hanging out with Shiznit, and then there are nights when I'd like to get out and do something (with or without another person), but at the end of the day when all is said and done, I can go back to my apartment with my cats and nobody else to bother me. At least for now, I'm quite enjoying living alone.

Blackbirds Gotta Sing, Blackbirds Gotta Fly

Ok, I don't actually sing, but I thought that was a fitting header for the fact that this has been something of a musical bucket-list year and that I did quite a bit of traveling. I saw Guns n' Roses in Phoenix in August and The Cure in Mountain View over the summer, neither of which I had ever seen before. I also saw Assemblage 23 for the second time, VNV Nation twice (SF and NYC) within the span of a month, and finally got a chance to see old-school drum n' bass DJ Aphrodite. There was also the Japanese holographic singer that I saw in Los Angeles, Hatsune Miku. Yes, a holographic singer. That was one of the most fun shows I'd ever been to. And, of course, the annual pilgrimage to Hungary for my week-long Ozorian adventure into psytrance. Between the weather, the music, and the people, 2016 was the best Ozora I've been to so far, even though A wouldn't let me come out and say it until the week was almost over. Sometimes, blackbirds just know.

O.Z.O.R.A.

This really does deserve its own section, because I genuinely felt like something was different after coming back from Ozora this year. The event itself was great; I got to reconnect with A1 and A2, and they introduced me to T and B, two more Denver psy-cats, and the five of us camped together for the week, with P and his girlfriend serendipitously right next to our little enclave. C also went to Ozora but camped with D (a German girl we met in 2014) and some of her friends. They were maybe 200 yards away from us the whole week, oddly enough, and at various points throughout the week our groups intersected and we hung out, and everything was just chill.

I was stressed out with life and work in the weeks leading up to the festival, so I said that I wanted to have one day where I just completely forgot what my name was; that turned out to be Saturday. I'm pretty sure I took 4 hits of LSD (drugs are bad, mmmmkay?), but in retrospect it might have been 5 - either way, at one point I had to leave the main stage and go back to my tent and listen to something other than psytrance, so I put my headphones on and went off into some ambient soundscapes (think Emancipator or Rameses B or stuff like that). I don't think I had what they call a "breakthrough" experience, but I think it was pretty close, and after writing down a few random statements, I fell asleep and then woke up and was still tripping. I'd never had that happen before; usually once I go to sleep, it's over.

Anyway, even if it wasn't a "breakthrough" experience, I still felt like something had clicked into place and I'd had at least some measure of paradigm shift. The best way I can think of to put it is that I finally started to grok^[2] some things which I think I had always known but never really internalized. I'd always wondered how I could bring back a part of the Ozora experience to my daily life, and I guess this was how I figured out how to do it. My quest to build a better blackbird has certainly had some bumps along the way (see the first part of this post for one such bump) but I feel like I'm moving in the right direction, and I think this year's Ozora played a large part in making that happen.

Building a Better Blackbird

This covers a bunch of different things - everything from just trying to be a bit more compassionate and a bit less of a dick to people who don't deserve both barrels of blackbird wrath (see previous section about the irate raven) to going to the gym, getting more sleep, and trying to eat healthier or waste less time on empty shit like Facebook. Some days I'm more successful with these things than others, although I have been in the gym pretty regularly since the end of August, and I've noticed that since coming back from Ozora I no longer have any desire to stay up until 3am doing work-related shit. Yeah, sure, right now it's 2am and I'm writing this post, but this is something for me - it's not something related to my job. There was a running joke within my team that I just never slept, because I was pretty much always online late at night or sending emails at 4am or whatever. It wasn't because I had to do any of this stuff - we don't have that kind of company culture - it was just what I was choosing to do with my time. These days, I'd generally rather just get some sleep. Don't get me wrong, I like my job (for the most part), but I just no longer see any point in committing superhuman effort week after week. There will always be more work to do, no matter how quickly the work gets done. Might as well just get some sleep. I think hitting the gym regularly has also contributed to this.

The way that the situation with she who shall not be named ultimately ended also falls under the 'building a better blackbird' section, because I think previous iterations of this bird would probably have gone nuclear on her. Just as a blackbird can be your best friend, a blackbird can also be the absolute worst kind of bird to piss off, because those birds have long memories, they hold grudges, and they're resourceful as fuck when it comes to revenge. I came fairly close to hitting the big red launch button, but then I didn't, and I let logic and rational thought take over and de-escalate back to DEFCON 5. I had an old high school track coach that used to say that everything was just about mind over matter - if you didn't mind, it wouldn't matter. That little nugget of wisdom works wonders for promoting a stress-free avian existence.

Cats: A Blackbird's Best Friend

Nothing in particular happened with Priss & Shiznit this year, but they are still alive and healthy, and they just turned 16 years old, so I think that deserves a special mention here. Meow! Yay for cats!

Assorted Concluding Miscellany

On balance, I think 2016 has been a net positive, and certainly if I look at where things are right now, even though that might lead me down the rabbit hole of recency bias, it's hard to find much to bitch about. I'm moved into my new apartment, my stuff is basically unpacked, I'm in good health and so are my friends, family, and cats. My job is generally fulfilling and it pays me enough that I can basically do whatever I want (within some reasonable limits, mind you, I'm not a 1-percenter) without stressing about how I'm going to pay for it. My mind is in a good place. My spirit is in a good place. My heart is well-armored but not unreachable, and I'm not generally angry, sad, or upset with anyone or anything. I'm not sure what else I could really ask for.^[3]

Stay tuned for part 3, in which I foolishly attempt to make some predictions about 2017, all of which will probably turn out to be wrong. :-)