Favor de sacudirme despierto

I admit I took some Nyquil type stuff to help me fall asleep last night and I unthinkingly gulped down too much of it. I feel pressure to go to sleep by early morning at the latest so I can be up during the day. I am always up most of the night here. It is the time I get to be alone and do everything my way. If I didn’t feel pressure to be up during the day paradoxically I probably would be a lot more often.

I woke up way more tired than usual, wanted to go back to sleep but didn’t want to look lazy, so I put on my audiobook about Abraham Lincoln. I fell asleep and had a dream that I was in my grandfather’s house and he was looking to see what I had in my bags. I didn’t want him to see and then moved them to the other side of the room. I sort of had an image of Mr. Lincoln standing with another man and talking about religion. I don’t know if that was a dream or not. In his earlier life, Lincoln did not believe that God had much to do with the destiny of the world, that God wasn’t involved in history, but in his later life as president his view on that changed.

He didn’t have much of a relationship with his parents. I think probably he would have remembered his mother, who died when he was young, more fondly if not for the scandalous stories that were told about her. He resented that his father made him go out and do jobs and then took all the wages. The author speculates that this might have something to do with the anti-slavery position he took throughout his life. Of course it is probably a whole lot more complex than that. His family was generally anti-slavery though he was not, previous to being the one to actually abolish slavery, strictly speaking, an abolitionist. He also expressed some white supremacist viewpoints that he expressed once in a while though perhaps that was more a matter of political expediency at the time, though he did not use this to further justify cruelty towards black people who, sadly, strictly speaking, he considered an inferior race. I don’t know if he continued to feel that way throughout his life and he seems to have considered it more of a technicality or an expediency than an important consideration. He likely encountered slave traders when his family was living in Kentucky near the Louisville-to-Nashville Cumberland Road.l, and in the early 1850s he said to an office boy, “I saw it all myself when I was only a little older than you are now, and the horrid pictures are in my mind yet.”

Maybe I will write a Medium article on the lessons we can learn from the life of Abraham Lincoln? I am slowly brainstorming ideas. Once I get going on writing ideas I have a feeling I’m going to be writing so much that even if I make a penny an article that would turn into a decent income. I am going to slowly narrow into a niche but feel free in the meantime to just write whatever comes to mind to write about. People are saying that writing an article a week is a good goal. I feel like once I get my style and couce down an article a day will be no problem. I have to conquer my fear that no one would be interested in anything I might have to say. There are so many ways and strategies to use the platform of Medium to monetize and I haven’t scratched the surface of the possibilities. I am tentatively pretty excited about it. I think just writing and making lists of things I learned from this or that will help me organize my life but then there is a chance to make money from it too.

What is percolating in me is a list of things I know now that I regret not knowing sooner. There are so many lines of thought that I had that now I am thinking, what was I thinking? Like, I have had this thought that I have no idea what I would do with money. I don’t need very much of it for myself and I have no one to give it to and no one to serve with it if I had more so why make money? What would I even do with money if I had it? Um, save it? Duh?

Just because I have no need for it now doesn’t mean I can’t save it to grow in possibilities and expand my options for the future. I have known this stuff since I was so little, so why oh why did I not do what I knew? Too much was in my way? But what was in my way that isn’t now, what has changed? It’s confusing. I actually have no idea. I had resistance and I cannot explain why. Now I have nothing to lose and nothing to prove. Maybe it’s never too late to start, assets can build up wuite quickly, and honestly my vision is to have the first hundred thousand dollars saved up by the end of next year. And then what would be the point of turning that into a million? From my old perspective there was mo point, now it feels like the point is just to live life. I am not the only one who has taken forever to figure it out, right? What has happened to me psychologically the last few months, I have no way of knowing or explaining, and I have no idea if it is a good thing ir a bad thing, but maybe it’s true that it’s always darkest before the dawn. I just have to say that it got really, really dark.

It did not occur to me that who knows, maybe something unexpectedly good will happen in my life and having more money would be a good thing. Maybe (I wish) I will even have kids and then, what the heck is the point of not caring about saving money just in case? I was in the mindset that if I saved money it was to protect against something horrible happening but what if I save so I have more chances of something good happening? Duh. Could I even write a Medium article on, life tips, save money? People are going to paugh at that because it is so totally duh but Inwas so resistent to it. The thought of saving gave me anxiety because then you have to protect your money and that scares me especially if the way I am making money isn’t fun and worthwhile all by itself. Then it is all gone because of some mistake I made or some oversight that I couldn’t have foreseen if I tried. But what I am learning as I learn more about the markets is that the best traders, more than anything, are excellent risk and asset managers. Robust risk and asset management are built into their trading strategy. Then I realised, I am good at that, I can do that, and in the context of the market, that sounds fun to me. Wait, I can do that with savings too, it’s not so hard to take a few precautions to make pretty darn sure my assets are protected and it can even be enjoyable. What was I thinking? What was I thinking about everything? I was thinking a lot of things I know and have always known are erroneous if I actually think about it but I thought them anyway.

Today after I finally got myself up I showered, went to Dairy Queen for an ice cream and fries, and read a bit more of Brooklyn Brujas. I came back to the house and raked leaves for about an hour. I decided that what I think I want to do is spend a month in Guatemala before the holidays, just a month, and maybe take Spanish lessons when I am there.

Though at that point who knows what I will have decided to do. I want to feel like everything I want to do is flowing into place and slowly I think that is happening. Oh, the dangers of being isolated from others eho can simply remind you of things you already knew. In isolation it is so hard to forget. I think being more social in ways that feel good will come as it all this comes together.

I have had the song Everybody Wants to Rule the World in my head today. The line ‘welcome to your life’ is resonating with me today. I don’t know what that life is but since I feel like I have nothing to lose the obstacles to living it seem to be disappearing anyway. I have so many emotional obstacles, so much anxiety, but if I keep my eyes on the mountain and move forward step by step I will get there. I also had the Pippi Longstocking theme in my head while raking: “Watch out world, here she comes.” I want to be more like Pippi Longstocking but I don’t know if I actually ever ever will. It would be nice if a friend told me I remind them of Pippi. That is whst I want to he for my friends, someone like Pippi was for Annika and Tommy. I wish someone had told me that more money would feel like having a lot more breathing room and more energy and… it eould let me be more like Pippi for my friends.

I am reminded of Buckminster Fuller who, being suicidal, had a sudden epiphany that he had a purpose after all which “could only be fulfilled by sharing his mind with the world.” He was younger than me when he had that realisation though and he accomplished more than I coukd ever dream of accomplishing. Someone should have been able to shake me awake, shown me there is something I am not seeing, ways I am getting in the way of living life, and I don’t know why it has taken so long to… what? Take purposeful action?

Someone named LJ did help me see I was getting in my own way but then I got even more in my own way because I could not unravel what getting in my own way meant and how I was doing it. The closest thing to someone shaking me awake was a wonderful woman named Masako, an acupuncturist and the most grounded intuitive healer I have met. I want to write her a letter to tell her how grateful I am for her. Did I tell her I wanted to make music or did she just sense it? I don’t know. She is very energetically intuitive. She helped me see that there is not enough time in life not to do what I love and enjoy life now. I felt her presence with me as love. I have had a similar sense with other Japanese people I have met and I am so drawn to Japan it feels like it could be the beginning of finding myself. Without knowing the phrase she was teaching me with her love the art of Ichigo Ichie, the Japanese art of making the most of every day and every moment. I feel so connected to Japanese people.

Usually I am of the mindset that if there is no time and life is impermanent then ehat is really the point if doing what you love since if is all going to be taken away. She moved me, had some kind of affect on me, though it was confusing at the time. If there is so little time then why do what I love? Why mot fret about how unfair life is and be a victim to the passing of time? Having so little time to live life scares me. When you think about it you only have 365 days in a year and then only so many of those. And yet so many manage to live this short life as though it is worth living. Masako lovingly shifted me to a perspective where time is precious and that is all the more reason to do what you love. It is hard but love can show you the way.