a work in progress

panorama of Vancouver/English Bay in summer

Month: February 2020

Intention for Feb 3, 2020

I think today’s (and possibly this week’s) intention will be to practice equanimity. I added a little reminder sticker to my computer.

Unfortunately, I basically never see that while I’m at my desk because the laptop is on a raised stand.

But it’s an important skill to practice. In “Buddha’s Brain” they note that “complete equanimity is an uncommon state for both the mind and the brain”

and “with equanimity, the limbic system can fire however it “wants.” The primary point of equanimity is not to reduce or channel that activation, but simply not to respond to it. This is very unusual behavior for the brain”

There’s something very appealing about training my brain to decouple limbic response from my actions. I also like that this is described as ‘unusual’. For some reason that makes me more motivated to try this.

An index card with bubbly text saying "Mr. Loof" and a childlike drawing of a very long cat that could be mistaken for the Pink Panther.

Day 1 of “Making Comics”

It’s been a pretty mellow weekend so far. I … don’t think I left the house yesterday, despite it being the first sunny day this year (we have a pretty great view so I got plenty of natural light and enjoyment out of it anyway)

I learned yesterday that this year is a Leap Year, so I felt justified in deferring my “30 min of cardio a day for all of Feb” until this morning, but I did do it this morning.

But yesterday, I started the comics course I mentioned in my last post.

The course asks us to pick an alternate identity to ‘put on’ when we’re doing the course work. I wanted to be thoughtful about this but damned if the words “Mr. Loof” didn’t spring into my mind and refused to be shifted.

Meet Mr. Loof

An index card with bubbly text saying “Mr. Loof” and a childlike drawing of a very long cat that could be mistaken for the Pink Panther.

Mr. Loof is based on a real life loof (flood). This real life floofgoof:

A very long, very flat, orange short-haired cat

There’s something about drawing to random songs with explicit prompts that is very freeing (constraints driving creativity and all that). I’m trying to be open and no-ego about this process so I thought I’d share the weekly course drawings here. (The daily diary I’ll keep to myself).

Have some early work 🙂 (no alt-text for these b/c I don’t know how to begin describing them. “8 index cards that are starting to show some level of drawing style”?

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