Marooned in Realtime
28 April, 2006
“Marooned” isn’t quite the right word, but that title from an obscure SF work by Vernor Vinge sticks in my mind.
Our new Christchurch friend Anne has started saying, “I’m blooming where I was planted,” or something like that. It’s more appropriate. We’re not marooned, or stuck, here. We’re growing, even flourishing here.
Tonight we had a table of seven people at Dux De Luxe, hanging out on Friday night. 7! We are now a community, a crowd, a clan. There are certain good feelings that come from such groupings.
More evidence that we are now in realtime—that time keeps passing at a ridiculously rapid pace. Ken has been here for close to two weeks now, we have been here for close to three. Where many of my previous blog posts started with or contained, “so much has happened,” now nothing much seems to happen at all.
Further evidence: when we were on hyper accelerated holiday time, I was up every morning with the sun, and Kathy was the late sleeper. Now she is up at 7AM every morning, and I have been sleeping until 10. Back to normal, the regular cycles of our bodies asserting themselves, back in realtime.
We were going to take a big trip up to Marlborough Sounds and do a 4 day tramp (hike) at the start of the week. Called on account of weather. Kathy and Ken were going to leave today for a trip to Dunedin, once again called on account of weather.
The season has come for being in one’s place, for setting down roots, for staying, for being. Notice I said Kathy and Ken on the trip to Dunedin—I had already decided to stay here, because I was finally into a rhythm that felt good, a pace of place where I was doing my Nei Gung exercises, building toward getting my compost bins built, getting financial infrastructural stuff done, feeling good, operating at a steady sustainable pace.
We have a lot of plans that are operating on a lot of different timescales. The establishment of the farm community is probably 5-10 years. The development of the Christchurch property is probably 3-5 years. The purchase of the farm property is probably 1-2 years. Kiwiburn is 8 months out. Getting our place ready as a furnished rental is 6 weeks. Building my internal energy, becoming one with the Tao (should that be where it leads): that’s all process, baby. Open ended.
Describing these different goals with different time frames is in some way helpful, and in some way obscures the point. All of these different tasks are emergent behaviours that are built on our day to day actions. All there is, is what you do in the moment. What you do right here, right now, is all your life is. The train of everyday events that can be laying individual bricks to build cathedrals, or just what you need to do to get by. Either way, it’s best to enjoy it as it happens. That’s why I didn’t want to leave town—because I had started to build a solid groove of day to day actions that were building towards my longer term plans and yet were sustainable and pleasurable on the realtime level. That, my friends, is my current recipe for success.
Certainly I am lucky, and of course just like everyone else I interpret the world in a way that reinforces my worldview. With that caveat, let me note that after a couple of days of being grounded and taking care of fundamental business, many good things came to me today. Our container with all of our personal goods which was lost at sea or perhaps heading to Australia suddenly appeared a few miles away in docks at Littleton Harbour. The electricity, which has magically stayed on during our stay benevolently provided by an unknown source identified itself today via the post, from a company that claims all power they provide is renewable, and they would be pleased as punch if we would just pay our bill on time. My US based international sharebroker (stockbroker) responded with some information that allowed me to take one further step towards trying to get local control over my New Zealand equities. And our real estate partner in our former home in San Francisco finally gave us a substantive proposal for a way to complete the sale of our interest.
None of these issues are resolved, but on all of them there is sudden progress, and I am here, grounded, in a mental space and settled space to try to bring their resolution to fruition.
I may, and I hope that I will not be, here forever, but I am here now and the firm ground is rising up beneath me, grounding me, bracing me to make further efforts to steer the continuing chaos of the world to my ends. I am in a place where I can and am continuing the work that is my life. There is nothing more that I could ask.
-Bruce