Another World Is Probable

I enrolled in a novel writing class and I confessed to a fellow writer that I feel a lot of pressure to put into practice everything I’m learning. I want my dialogue to conceal and reveal. I want to keep the reader guessing but not withhold too much. I want the plot to be engaging while also emotionally stirring. And I want to do all that perfectly in the first draft. More in this week's post. --- Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/another-world-is-probable/support

I keep thinking about the cycle of luck. If you take a snapshot of an event, it might initially seem like bad luck. But if you widen your lens, so to speak, that unlucky event can become lucky. More in this week's post.  --- Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/another-world-is-probable/support

I don’t particularly enjoy limbo, whether that’s a season or a situation. I want to cross a threshold but how often does that happen? Isn’t most of life instead a transition? Aren’t we perpetually waiting for one thing to end and another to begin? More in this week's post. And as promised, here's the link to the animated version of the Skeleton Woman story I mention.  --- Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/another-world-is-probable/support

As we’re finishing the Jewish High Holidays, I think it’s only fitting to share a concept I learned about recently. In Jewish mysticism, there’s an idea that in every generation 36 people hold up the world. These lamed-vavniks do not themselves know they are one of the 36 and no one else does either. More in this week's post. --- Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/another-world-is-probable/support

As we enter into a new year according to the Jewish calendar, I feel the energy of change. I’m being transformed. Some might say I’m like a piece of coal being turned into a diamond, but that’s a myth. Diamonds are related to coal, but they’re the purer cousin so no, if you squeeze coal really, really hard, it will not become a diamond. When discussing this with a friend, she said a more apt metaphor is that of a seed. More in this week's post. --- Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/another-world-is-probable/support

I am very attached to the fruits of my creative labors. I want my blogposts to become viral. I want the book I write to hit bestseller lists. I have very specific ideas about the trajectory of my creative efforts and boy do I get irritated when my ideas don’t match up with reality. It’s tough being an artist y’all. My ego can get in the way and when that happens, I have to remind myself what it means to be an artist. More in this week's post.  --- Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/another-world-is-probable/support

I learned something interesting recently. If people think they’re supposed to help someone else, they will. If they don’t think it’s their responsibility, they won’t help. That has interesting implications for kindness. More in this week's post.  --- Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/another-world-is-probable/support

I notice people seem to feel despondent and hopeless when it comes to climate change. They’re saying things like, “This is the coldest summer for the rest of your life,” and “Better move to the Great Lakes region because it will be the only place to get fresh water.” I get it. When there’s an onslaught of terrible news stories, such as flooding in Pakistan or the U.S., record heatwaves, epic fires, etc., it’s easy to feel gloomy. You’re more than welcome to feel depressed or live in dread regarding climate change if that works for you, but it doesn’t work for me. More in this week's post. Also, check the original for sources: https://www.anotherworldisprobable.com/2022/09/04/hope-needs-tending/  --- Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/another-world-is-probable/support

A little more than a year ago, I wrote a post called “Plants and People Need Pruning.” It was about letting go of relationships and recognizing it’s really hard for me. Part of the reason it’s hard is that all too often I don’t get a proper goodbye. The people that mattered to me – friends, partners, potential partners – just stopped talking to me. They were in my life one day and gone the next. Sometimes it wasn’t so dramatic. Sometimes they pulled a “slow fade” – gradually our communication became less and less until it disappeared altogether. Some of my friends, especially the ones from college, I speak to on a less frequent basis because we live in different time zones, but I still consider them my friends. I understand relationships have ebbs and flows so this post isn’t about them, but rather the other relationships that are well and truly dead. Almost all of those relationships never received a proper goodbye. More in this week's post. --- Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/another-world-is-pro

Several years ago I watched a Ted Talk by Elizabeth Gilbert on extreme success and extreme failure. She made the point that both positions catapult you out of your normal range of emotion and so both are hard to process. Both feel surreal because they aren’t everyday occurrences. Her point is resonating with me because I just got back from my sister’s wedding. More in this week's post. --- Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/another-world-is-probable/support

I feel unsettled after learning what happened to novelist Salman Rushdie on Friday. I’m upset by multiple things. One, the stabbing occurred during a lecture, an event you would think was safe and peaceful. Two, multiple people were so enraged by words, not actions, words, they sought to kill someone. That’s pretty intense. And problematic because to quote Rushdie, “The moment you say that any idea system is sacred, whether it’s a religious belief system or a secular ideology, the moment you declare a set of ideas to be immune from criticism, satire, derision, or contempt, freedom of thought becomes impossible.” More in this week's post. --- Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/another-world-is-probable/support

If you’re anything like me, you’ve heard over and over again you need to figure things out. In the U.S., we’re fond of “pulling ourselves up by our bootstraps,” going out there and “seizing the day,” and just generally “making stuff happen.” There’s this idea if you aren’t hustling, you’re doomed to live an unsatisfying and unfulfilling life. It’s exhausting, frankly. But what if there’s another way to move through the world? An easier way? Read more in this post. --- Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/another-world-is-probable/support

Growing up I heard the expression, “Opportunity only knocks once,” and I really took it to heart. I took advantage of every opportunity that came my way because I was scared it would slip away like a snowflake melting in the sun. Except as we know, when snowflakes melt, they come back again when it snows. Very rarely does it snow once and that’s it forever and always. Snowflakes are like opportunities in that they come around again if we only wait for them. More in this week's post. --- Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/another-world-is-probable/support

Have you seen that track event where one runner has a baton and then they pass it to the next person? That’s what I think humanity is like. We’re each carrying a baton that we give to the person ahead of us. We do that over and over again until eventually, humanity is in a different place than it was before. More in this week's post. --- Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/another-world-is-probable/support

I’ve written over and over again about how the universe is always communicating with us, but something I talk about less frequently is how our bodies do the same. Sometimes I roll my eyes when I hear that because I don’t always know what my body is saying and it feels too irritating or complicated to figure it out. However, as someone who is extremely psychosomatic, meaning someone with a very close mind-body relationship, I know my body communicates with me all the time whether I’m listening or not. More in this week's post. --- Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/another-world-is-probable/support

Lately when I look at my body, I notice it’s the road map of my life. I see the scar on my right arm from when a swing collapsed with me on it. I notice the poison oak scars on my left forearm and the discoloration under my chin from car accident number one. Normally I’d recoil from these marks, do my best to diminish them, cover them up, but at the moment, I’m looking at my body with fondness. More in this week's post. --- Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/another-world-is-probable/support

The other night I dreamt I was stuck with a roommate. For some reason, she couldn’t move out even though I wanted her to. She used my things, threw our house into disarray, and then managed to puncture a large hole in the ceiling. In short, NOT an ideal roommate. When I confronted her about the trouble she caused, she said, “It wasn’t me,” which was a blatant lie. Upon awakening, it seemed to me that dream is an excellent metaphor for what’s happening in the U.S. right now. More in this week's post.  --- Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/another-world-is-probable/support

I’m not gonna lie, on Friday I started fantasizing about moving to another country. One where people don’t have the right to walk around with guns in public, people with uteruses can get a safe abortion, and lives are valued in other ways, like with universal healthcare and free education. Yes, I live in a progressive state where some of the U.S. Supreme Court decisions are overruled by local laws, but still. I kept thinking to myself, “Why is the U.S. like this?” More in this week's post. --- Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/another-world-is-probable/support

Back in November, a friend told me, “There will always be an invitation to the fear party, but you can decline.” Lately, I’m reflecting on how not only is there a perennial invitation to the fear party, but also the grief party and the trauma party. There are endless opportunities for me to worry about X, to grieve about Y. Some of that is warranted, emotions show up for a reason, but some of it is needless suffering. More in this week's post. --- Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/another-world-is-probable/support

I’m recycling this post from November 2009 so a lot has changed in my life since then but I think the message is still a good one. Enjoy. There is a quote that says, “Even if a young boy says something logical, it should be accepted, and if the Supreme Creator says something illogical, it should be rejected as rubbish." It’s a good point. As a friend says, the truth has a ring to it. There’s a resonance when someone speaks the truth and that can come from any source, including yourself! However, before this week I really wanted to follow someone blindly. More in this week's post. --- Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/another-world-is-probable/support