Digging as a Philosophy

I ate my first homegrown tomato (beefsteak) last week and I have been craving more.  I managed to get 2 more tomatoes since then and one more very close to ripe, but after that there are no more.  That's what I get for only having one tomato plant.

First tomato! What it lacks in size, it makes up for in flavor.


I started digging another garden plot Saturday. However, I did not get very far despite spending a day digging. I found that the area of my yard where I decided to plant my garden is full of rocks. Big rocks. There were also lots of little rocks that seem like one big rock until I dug one after another. I would say that this particular area was 90% rock, 5% dirt, and 5% weeds.

My first shovel strike found this big rock.

The rocks take up most of the space of the hole I dug.


Since it took so long to dig around these rocks, it left me plenty of time to think about how much of a metaphor digging around giant rocks is.

You can only see what's on the surface. It's the same with icebergs: you can't see how deep that rock is until you've dug it up. There is no way to tell how long it will take to get around it. I come across problems like this in software programming all the time. What first appears to be a small problem slowly reveals itself to be a rather large immovable obstacle with no way around it. It simply takes patience and perseverance to keep digging around this obstacle until you find an edge you can use to leverage it out of the way. Trial and error is often the best approach here to narrow your choices of how the handle the obstacle.

Sometimes it seems there is one big rock, when in fact there are two or more. This can confuse things when you think you can go around it. The answer may be to explore the obstacle more to find the seams where it can be readily broken up into manageable pieces. Often when I find a rock cluster and liberate one from the ground, the others loosen easily.

Sometimes when tackling a problem, it seems easiest to blast through it all and break those big rocks. Sure, those rocks are in your way, but even obstacles may have value when handled with care. I found one rock that I finally had to lift out with a rock bar because my shovel couldn't budge it. That rock weighed about 30 pounds and was very big and round. It will look great somewhere in my landscape when I get done digging holes. If I had opted for a pickaxe to get the rock out, I would be left with a bunch of jagged rocks of non-impressive size. Dealing with a life problem by brute forcing through it may seem like a good idea at the time, but often the graceful approach is worth more in the long run since you not only deal with the problem, you learn from the experience. Knowing how to solve such a problem can be worth a lot to people who have been battling the same problem. One example would be someone who spanks their dog or child to make them obey (brute force). A kinder though slower approach to dealing with the unwanted behavior would be to learn what that dog or child wants and use that as a reward for good behavior along with practicing restraint so you can ignore the bad behavior. This will not be a fast or easy approach to achieving the goal of obedience, but you will gain not only obedience but also respect, friendship, and self improvement. You could market this skill of gentle discipline or just enjoy the benefits of your efforts.

I am still working on digging my new garden plot. I may wind up working on it all summer. It is hard work with no shortcuts, but when I am done, I will have the perfect space to put good earth and grow more vegetables. I'll also have plenty of rocks to line the garden bed.

The Future is a harsh mistress

Living for the future is a good way to be let down.  I once paid for a used car in five months.  I worked two jobs simultaneously for a month to save up for the down payment and averaged four hours of sleep per night that whole month.  One job was pizza delivery, and the other was a waitress on the graveyard shift at a Denny's.  I enjoyed my day job, but my car was falling apart.  I took the waitress job thinking I would be working a couple nights a week.  The manager started scheduling me full time as soon as I was trained.  That job really sucked the life out of me.  There was one night about three weeks in where I wanted to walk out, but I was too tired to walk home and I didn't have my car that night.  As soon as I bought a replacement car, I quit that job.  After I finished paying for my car, I took a promotion to assistant manager at the pizza joint.  This promotion involved a huge pay cut since I wasn't getting tips anymore from delivery.  I went from laying down lots of money on a new lemon and still having extra cash to spend to having no car payment and no extra money.

I hurried to pay for that car because I wanted my budget clear to go back to college.  I didn't want any debt to weigh down my conscience when I needed all my will to finish school.  Eventually I got enough from loans and scholarships to quit working and just focus on school.  Then I got hit by a truck...so I'm told.  When making a left turn, I was rear ended by a truck whose driver fell asleep.  I hit my head, lost a lot of blood, and lost all memory of the incident.  All I got as proof were a few pictures of a car with a body half the length of the one I bought and the frame sticking out from the bottom.  My plan to take care of my future was dashed in an instant.  My so-called friends would not give me rides to get a new job or to go to the university in the next town over.  I realized that I had placed the bulk of my faith in material investments and shallow people.  I was sorely depressed for a long time.  I finally moved away for a long while just to get a clean break from loser friends and unemployment.

The point of my story is that the future cannot be reliably planned.  I often find myself easily convinced that if I work really hard, I can get ahead of my debt and be free.  When I fall into this mentality, I find that I'm far more easily stressed because every tiny thing that clashes with my well laid plans causes my dream future to get further and further away.  I'm tired of chasing carrots dangling from sticks.  Am I going to curl up in the fetal position until the big mean future goes away?  No, I've tried that a few times and can honestly tell you that it doesn't work.  Instead I'm going to use what I actually have: now.  I have now, and the future is just a shadow being cast by the past as the present shines through it.  Though the past is unchanging, it is not written in stone.  The past is the amalgamation of memories that we choose to keep alive.  These memories feed on energy that we give it in the now.  All energy lives in the now.  Now is the only time you have to change your life or even to take action to keep it the same.

I calculated how long it would take to pay back my student loans at what I would consider a minimum payment.  The answer is eight years.  That's not as bad as I thought it would be last year when I was breaking my brain trying to get the loans paid off in three years.  The truth is, I would be making a far better investment by keeping some of those funds for investment in my now than my later.  If it takes me three years to pay off my debt, but during that time I have to be bored out of my skull because I can't afford to have fun, then I will have freedom from debt but no will to use it wisely.  I would have only earned laziness in that time because that's all that boredom has to offer me.  Instead I will pay off my loans slowly but surely, and use the extra cash to try new things and keep learning and growing.  I believe more than anything that personal development is by far the most valuable investment anyone can make.

Already, I have lost 10 pounds without damaging my metabolism or my health.  I used to think that I would only ever have time or money but not both at once.  However, if I can reshape my own body for the better without breaking myself, then it seems to me that fixing my finances is not such a far fetched goal, either.  If I sacrifice all that I have to pay off debt, I might find freedom in a few years, but that doesn't mean that it won't be immediately replaced with another burden or misfortune.  I realize that this is a pessimistic way of looking at the future, but if my ultimate goal is happiness, then I should focus on learning to be happy instead of learning to be free of debt.  The debt will go away no matter what I do because I will still pay the bill.  What I really need to invest in is my creativity.  I have a feeling if my creative side is well nourished, the rest of me will be fine no matter what happens.

January reading

Last year I bought a Kindle 3.  One of the interesting features it has is text to speech.  I'm guessing this is not an official feature of the device because it's located in the menu under "Experimental".  The voice is male, and he reads mostly well.  The voice has trouble with some punctuation, such as speeding through a bulletted list with no pauses.  For standard text, it reads comprehensibly enough that I can listen to it while I'm driving to work and back.  I've read several books this way, including Urban Farming by Thomas Fox, Personal Development for Smart People by Steve Pavlina, and Time Warrior by Steve Chandler.  All were very enlightening.  I'm currently reading Power vs Force by David R. Hawkins.

These books are all good for consciously changing my perspective.  Steve Pavlina is one of my favorite authors.  He writes about conscious growth.  His website www.stevepavlina.com has tons of articles that are each mind expanding on their own.  He also has podcasts on this site, and they are very eye opening as well.  Steve wrote a review on Power vs Force focusing on the levels of consciousness.  Just reading about these levels helps to put some logical understanding to reality.  The article inspired me to start reading this book.  It's a delightful read considering how much I love philosophy and mind-bending ways of thinking.

Professional Development for Smart People sounds like a snide title, but essentially conscious growth makes you smart, so really the title could be Personal Development for the Consciously Aware.  Steve Pavlina first ran a computer gaming business, and then switched gears to go into the personal growth business.  I connect with his writing very well because I am a computer programmer with a philosophical streak.

Urban Farming was an excellent book.  The first part fires up the reader with the grand cause of urban farming to save the world.  The second part gets more into the how-to and includes an mini encyclopedia of plant information.  If it's not enough information, then it's certainly enough to get a quality search started.

Time Warrior was just an excellent book.  Steve Chandler has a very common sense way of looking at all of our excuses for not doing what we really want and tearing them down.  This leaves a clear path to a goal more obvious and lifts the extra weight off your shoulders so you can get there.