Chicago Reflection #2

A difficult thing for me is keeping my mind moving in active directions, as apposed to passively waiting for things to come to it.

I grew up in a quiet house, where watching TV and playing video games were almost always okay. I have strong memories of settling in each night at 7pm to watch TV for 2-3 hours before going to bed. Every night. I had plenty of activities outside my home to keep me active, but once inside, my eyes glazed over and my brain turned into passive mush.

When I’m passive, I’m waiting for things to come to me and I’m grumpy towards
anything and anyone asking me to break out of my rut. Early on, the depressing isolation I created for myself in college felt like a tomb.  The overwhelmingly active environment sent me spinning back to my dorm room to watch TV and cruise online (but not, sadly, to study).  People were always coming and going, and the only way to fall into my passive glaze involved isolating myself from their energy. That isolation became suffocating and only with the help of God and good people did I manage to break out of my stupor.

I’m not nearly that passive anymore, and I’ve come a long way in the last 10 years, but remaining active can still be challenging for someone who’s natural fallback is passivity. I’ve found things like having a people-centered job, exercising and not watching too much TV help me remain active, but lately I’ve been feeling out of balance again. I need to readjust my active and passive levels for this new and improved version of myself.

Things like personal appearance, sexuality and internet use still live in passive worlds and I’d like to find better balances for them. Right now with these topics, I sit back, let my brain go to mush and take whatever comes my way. Instead I want to be really intentional on how I approach these things and encounter them in my daily life.

I’m probably not going to discuss my sexuality too much on the web (I’m still a MidWesterner for God’s sake), but this blog offers a great way to focus my web use into something productive and enjoyable (as opposed to mindless and enjoyable). It also encourages me to follow through on the things I talk about. Accountability seems to rise when something is published, even when published on a blog on the internet.

Chicago Reflection #1

For my birthday, Kelly and I left our little house in Minneapolis and trekked to the
big city of Chicago for a weekend. Well, she has a work conference here, so it wasn’t
entirely for my birthday, but, either way, that means I have two days on my own in
the big city, and I’m doing my best not to waste them.

I love traveling and being in new cities, it reenergizes me and makes operate on
levels I may not reach in my day to day at home. We visited Austin a few years ago
and I loved the down-home feel mixed with city chic that emanated from everything.
We actually arrived the weekend after SXSW, and the entire city felt relaxed and
content. We slipped in, slipped out and loved every minute.

Chicago, of course, has a different feel than Austin or Minneapolis. It’s more
Midwest with an east coast polish than anything else.

The energy I get from these streets as I visit vintage clothing stores, used book
stores, hole-in-the-wall Mexican restaurants and a posh downtown Indian
restaurant, is one of active energy. A determination by everyone and everything to
use every moment within the day as an expression of one’s self.

I do recognize that we’re staying in a hotel we wouldn’t normally be comfortable
affording (conference discount) in an area where most stores, restaurants and
homes signify a level of wealth I’ll never experience. I also recognize a lot of the
outward polish and confidence I see comes from that wealth and isn’t always
authentic.

Still, though, there’s a vibrancy here I want to internalize before I leave. One that
would exhaust me if I lived it every day, but propels me when taken in small doses.