Wades Journal - December 13, 2012

CONTENTS
Wades Journal - December 13, 2012
Readers’ Comments


Wades Journal - December 13, 2012

Robin Rainbow Gate has produced a 10-minute video, “Wade’s Tepoztlan,” that captures my normal routine here in the mountains of Mexico. It includes a tour of my bungalow and favorite spots in town. To view it, click here.

My bungalow is a simple abode. The kitchen is in the bathroom with a hotplate, toaster oven, and rice cooker next to the sink. Some day I may expand by building a living room and kitchen. But that’s all I could afford without driving taxi more, which would have cut into my other efforts. And I don’t know how much time I’ll be spending here. So this works well for now.

For one thing, I want to travel for at least one month each year, generally to places I’ve never been. This February my destination is Brazil. I’ll be there for Carnival in Bahia, where the celebration is more participatory than in Rio, where it’s more of a spectacle to observe. In the future, Belize, Guatemala, Argentina, Peru, Spain, Portugal, Morocco, Greece, Turkey, South Africa, the islands off the east coast of Africa, New Zealand, Australia, Indonesia, and Vietnam are on my list. And I can finance it while listening to Giants’ baseball! Not bad.

Unless, of course, I get swept up in a revolution or some true love. But neither option seems very likely at this point. Maybe I’m too picky in my old age.

I’d like to help change the world in a direct, dramatic, and obvious fashion. But the movements of opposition I see seem to unnecessarily reproduce the dominant culture, which undermines their effectiveness and discourages my involvement.

So I’ll continue to plants seeds as best I can, keep my eyes open, and contribute my fair share to those options that are available. Maybe some compelling energy will emerge at the January 19 Social Transformation Using the Three-Fold Path workshop.

What stands in the way? Fear, I figure, as I discussed in "Facing Fear." Our ego gets scared, seizes control, and shuts down our heart. If we face reality and follow it to its logical conclusion, our whole world might be turned upside down. So we live in illusions, refusing to be honest. I do this as much as anyone.

Except in employment situations where job security is important, I suspect most fears are irrational and counter-productive. Rilke said our fears are like dragons protecting our most precious treasures. Rumi said we use our thorns to protect our roses. But if we keep our treasures cooped up protected by our dragons and our thorns, we can’t enjoy others enjoying them.

Fortunately, it seems younger people are much more open and transparent. Maybe they’ll grow a new culture.

So I hole up here in the mountains alone on a working retreat, trying to develop new, more productive habits. Here I don’t have to drive taxi. There are fewer distractions. There are fewer temptations (like exquisite but fattening restaurants). The sun shines every day. At night I can step outside and stare at the stars. When I socialize it’s with a different set of individuals, which is interesting. But otherwise life here is much like in San Francisco.

This week, for example, I’m experimenting with not going online until I’ve completed those tasks that I can do without being online. I’m making my meals a meditative experience rather than reading the screen while eating. And I have a list of tasks with times budgeted for each, use a timer to keep track of time, and check off the tasks as I complete them. That way I don’t have to waste time deciding what to work on next or keeping an eye on the clock. I can just concentrate on what I’m doing.

Following is this week’s check list: Morning Pages – 15 minutes; Exercise, incl. shower – 1 hr; Memoir – 1 hr.; Read a book – 1 hr.; Wade’s Weekly (including working on photos and video) – 1 hr; Workshop – 1 hr; Reform Wall Street (research, incl. Twitter, and writing) – 2 hr; Getting organized – 1 hr; Email – 1 hr; Facebook (incl. outreach) – 1 hr; Evening ritual- 15 minutes. That’s 10.5 hours total. Plus eating, cleaning, and sleeping makes for a full day. On weekends I do errands and take a day of rest.

Last week was a bit ragged. My routine was disrupted. It took me three efforts to get my laundry back. My DSL connection has been off and on, so I have to pay more to use my smart phone as a slower portable wi-fi hotspot. Repeated efforts to get set up to pay my electricity and phone online have been unsuccessful, but we are making progress. Getting my water pump fixed was disruptive, but hopefully it works correctly now. A dinner guest cut into my routine last week. And Monday night, curious about how good the Houston Texans are with what was an 11-1 record, I did email while watching Monday Night Football. (It seems Houston is not so good after all.)

This week is going better. I may have an even more productive second month before I return to San Francisco in early January.

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READERS’ RESPONSES

Re: Question #1  - Do progressive activists need to improve how they relate to others? If so, how?

…To summarise my main points:
a. Be clear about your own intentions.
b. Be clear in your expression.
c. Be careful of the other's needs.

Thanks for reading!

Yahya

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From Facebook and Email:

Become more instructive and less accusatory.

2. I think both progressives and arch right conservatives have to improve their empathetic listening skills, be more open and less mired in their own beliefs.

3. what...stop talking?

4. Yes. The righteous indignation tends to turn people away. The ego, the judgement. a progressive activist (or any activist, I suppose) needs to not invest so much in immediate results, immediate rallying - but, be patient and be in it for the long term. Activism is a long and slow process without many immediate rewards, at times. Pretty soon after the rallying cry it can turn into "You're not doing it the way I want you to do it and I started this thing..." kind of stuff. Factions and splits form and - soon after - abandonment of the process. Patience is a virtue in leaders, and many social activists don't have a lot of patience to spare. In my experience of giving up on working with progressive activists...

5. suggest Stephen R. Covey's book the Third Altenative, and no you don't stop talking , but you listen to everyone's ideas before inflicting your's on others.

6. I remember when people started describing themselves as progressive I myself did a fellowship for the Center for Progressive Leadership which is now non existent. At that time I would describe progressive as trying to make progress in our society from the two party system as well as the box that people live in the political system in this country. That they cannot think outside the two party box and they themselves can't provide a solution to move this country forward and make progress.

7. frame the debate and go on the offensive rather than react to right wing obfuscation.

8. Yes, of course. We need to listen more, insult less, and focus on positive visions that resonate and provide hope in addition to endlessly critiquing the many negatives. Progressive activists need to tell more stories, get ourselves and others to laugh more, celebrate more victories, build broader coalitions, stop cannibalizing our own as much, and never quit. We have truth, morality, and history on our side, but nothing is inevitable or automatic; we have to go out and help make it happen.

9. Yes! Be Fair, Firm and Calm.

10. Progressives should move beyond their ideology and towards a view that values diverse perspectives as a source of collective wisdom when handled well - and to advocate a social-political agenda that practices and institutionalizes productive conversations among such diverse perspectives (especially in jury-like minipublic councils that embody the diversity of the community concerned) to generate wise public policy that benefits the whole community or system over the long haul. I suspect that such a we-the-people-in-creative-conversation approach would result in far more legitimacy and far more public policies that reflect current progressive values than continuing to invest activist energy in left-wing partisanship.

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Re: Question #2 - How do progressive activists need to change how they FEEL – that is, in terms of our tendencies, how would you like to alter your inner experience?

As you're reading Camus, here's my answer to Q2: "The struggle itself ... is enough to fill a [person's] heart. One must imagine Sisyphus happy." --- Camus

Dan Brook

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"Yes, of course. We need to listen more, insult less" - insult not at all!

Leonard Roy Frank

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Re: Escape 

Wonderful and descriptive.......Thanks

Sherri Maurin

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write on, Wade...I'm back in town, you in Mexico?

Camila Aguilar

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Wade, great!. I enjoyed reading it and thinking back to high school, you did an excellent job of getting the reader (me) into the story. I have one possible typo and 1 possible clarification.... Look forward to the next chapter.

Freddi Fredrickson

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Even though I didn't have the time to read your first chapter, I read it and enjoyed it. Good luck with the memoir. Arlene (Also a U.C. grad on a scholarship after attending 2 yrs. at S.F. City College. Graduated from U.C. in 1960 before the "hurricane called The Sixties".)

Arlene Reed

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Looks like your time in Mexico is good for your writing. Wishing you the best.

Vicki wolf

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Good luck on your memoir Wade. They are always important.

Robert Kourik

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I read it and liked it, Wade - partly cuz I'm a former Dallasite and UC Berkeley grad as well....Good luck with it!

Don McClaren

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Great writing Wade. Couldn't stop reading once I started. Best of luck getting the book published.

John Testa

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Wow... I learned things about you that I never knew before. You really captured the feel of Dallas -- and of our mother. I, too, escaped as soon as possible - to live with you in SF!

Mary Hudson

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Nice memoir, Wade. I enjoy hearing people's life stories.

Annodear

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Two suggestions: Make the columns a third of its present width.

If you haven't already, read David Brooks' column about Lincoln and the Krugman column about the right on the 23rd.

Hope all's well.

Mike Larsen

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Re: Mother

Wade, thank you for writing and emailing your memoirs.  I love hearing people's stories, and so much of what you've written has resonated with me.  We've had similar experiences, in different contexts, and it's a bit like looking in a mirror.

I, too, held my mother's hand as she passed away (and, two years earlier, my dad's).  It's a profound experience.

Again, thanks, and I'm looking forward to reading your next installment.

Susan

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Re: Daddy 

Sheila Koren:
Very interesting and compelling, Wade. Thanks for sharing it.

Sara Colm:
This chapter answered some questions from earlier sections,

Richard Cohen:
Thanks. Didn't want to read it but glad I did. Puts a story behind the man driving the Vespa.