mood

[flume]

Just came back from an information evening at a school for organic farming I applied to. When I’m with the animals or in the garden at work, I’m really in my element. So I decided I want to have more background knowledge about agriculture in general, how the different fields are connected and the possibilities there are.

I’m pretty bummed out about the evening though to be honest. It’s a cute small school in a beautiful rural area, surrounded by hills. They get a ton of applications and only take 30 new students every year. I guess my chances are good but nothing inside of me wants to go back there. 

Too many regular-school-red-flags. Written tests, more theory than practice, division of subjects in a super artificial way. I also don’t feel like there was enough emphasis on working with nature and the big picture of health, just talks about calculating feeding portions, legal implications, blablabla… 

It bums me out that farming is barely taught in any other way anymore. Because it’s not profitable or whatever. It’s just soul crushing to see even organic agriculture turning sour like this. Wow, I’m really grieving right now. This matter is so close to my heart. 

I guess I’m a bit spoiled by our sweet paradise of 10 cows and 20 sheep who I get to give names to and talk to daily. They’re so well taken care of it actually melts my heart. 

But this school is not for me, even though it’s a great step in the right direction. I’m proud to be from Austria, given that we’re pioneers in organic farming. There are almost 25000 certified organic farms in this country which make up 1/4 of all farmed land. And this number is growing steadily every year.

I’ll find something different though. 

[Michael569]

On 27/04/2021 at 9:41 PM, flume said:

Too many regular-school-red-flags. Written tests, more theory than practice, division of subjects in a super artificial way. I also don’t feel like there was enough emphasis on working with nature and the big picture of health, just talks about calculating feeding portions, legal implications, blablabla…

don't let that discourage you from answering the call of your passion It would be a beautiful process of learning and expanding your knowledge. Not to mention great opportunity to make contacts with people with likewise mindsets, some of those friendships could last for a very long time. Yeah, there will be stage blue dogma, tests and all that crap but it ain't all that bad. If you are passionate about the subject, the learning, tests etc actually come to you pretty easy (speaking from recent experience). You are too "evolved" already for any of that dogma to stick to you. 

And once you graduate you do your own thing and sometimes it helps to have a certificate/degree especially maybe if you in future wanted to start your own farm or animal shelter

[flume]

I tried the emotional scale for the first time. 

Noon. I just slept for 12 hours. My focus is nowhere to be found. I can’t read, can’t meditate and there’s a weird film between me and reality. My apartment is a mess and the thought of leaving the house to visit my family today overwhelms me. I feel like a zombie and I have no idea what to do. 

“Enough of this” I conclude and look up @Nahms emotional scale. Anything “Law Of Attraction” usually turns me off. Airy fairy stuff I never understood, fake-positive people with a way-too-simplistic worldview. But I mean, if Phil recommends it, it’s probably good. I also have no idea what else to do.

I get a headache starring at the screen so I get an online reader to read it to me. Sitting there, I listen to all of it, but I enter the conversation emotionally at “Discouragement”. I take the time to express out loud how discouraged I feel. When I felt satisfied I moved up an emotion and do the same. Giving the whole experience the benefit of the doubt, I’m really starting to get into it. Looking like a lunatic I run around in my apartment, talking to random objects and myself, play some stuff on the piano, do random stretches and go back to it.

I’m slowly realising that this is working. Still in the bottom half of the scale, the emotions don’t feel great, but every step up is slightly better than the one before. And taking the time to really express them in whatever way makes the lower emotions just fall away naturally.

Weird how that works.

 

When I got to “Overwhelment” it read:

“The recognition and expression of overwhelment is, in a sense, a ‘popping of the balloon’ of one’s own ‘big picture of worry’. It is a ‘putting down’ of ‘the baggage’ we’ve been carrying. This inherently feels relieving, as it brings us back to the simple, to the now, to what is, to ourselves, to the present.”

That’s the moment I crashed. This so hit home. I realise that I’m SO. FUCKING. OVERWHELMED. It worries me, because if I’m really honest with myself, this has been going on for weeks at this point. Even though I love my life and the people in it, right now anything is too much. I feel like I can’t filter things that are coming my way appropriately anymore and everything feels like an attack.

I felt the weight of weeks of accumulated tension dropping off me, laying bare in front of me. “I’m so fucking overwhelmed. I’m so overwhelmed” I kept saying and cried my heart out. My mind (finally) didn’t resort to “causes” of this overwhelm anymore. The feeling was just there, unmistakable, thick and truly expressed in its essence.

I knew I couldn’t go on up the scale at this point. This feeling of overwhelm deserved some more time. No need to rush past it. Not like I could, even if I wanted to. Tears flow freely and it feels good to come back to myself, to no longer run and finally be honest with myself.

This took up most of the day. In the evening I drive to my parents and tell them what’s going on. They help me conclude that it’s not a good idea for me to take care of other people at the moment and that I should probably take time off work. I call work and get a week of sick-leave.

 

Back home I take a hot bath and listen to a Matt Kahn talk. Crying again, I realise I should probably up my water intake as to not get dehydrated  I surrender to the fact that this is just calling my attention now. Whatever “this” is, I can’t run from it any longer. And no one can do this for me. In fact, trying to explain myself to people around me only makes matters worse. This place is not foreign to me. I’ve been here before. I call it the “belly of the beast”. Even though I’m quite disoriented at the moment, feeling very much “in the middle of it” and I don’t really know what I’m doing, I can intuit how necessary all this is. 

Tonight I had another 12 hour sleep followed by an extremely gentle, low intensity day. Warm oatmeal, a walk, a bit of reading, music, writing,… I think I have enough strength to look at the scale again now.

I really feel like I’ve found a set of “tools” that help me greatly in these situations. The emotional scale might be a new one. But I’m also respectful as to not overwhelm myself even more. No need to rush things and make myself feel unsafe. This is good though. I can feel it. The only way to go now is up.

[Nahm]

?

[flume]

Every conclusion is a form of delusion

Feeling much lighter this morning. I’m already amused by the human melodrama I got myself into the past weeks. Too much reflection just becomes weird after a while... I'm really getting in a swirl trying to explain what is happening to me, turning in circles endlessly by analysing myself. Meh. I'm just done with that for now. There are too many exciting creative projects I'd much rather focus on. So I'll just

Drop it like it's hot

Drop it like it's hot

Drop it like it's hot @fridjonk 

"Every conclusion is a form of delusion" Matt Kahn stated in a recent talk. This statement really stuck with me. How often I'm trying to neatly "package" experiences up, "come to an end", a conclusion, so I can finally put them to rest. It's an understandable tendency but it's also useful to be aware of this mechanism and play with it.

It feels extremely expanding to leave events open. Not coming to a conclusion is a meditative experience as it puts me into the now so effortlessly and loosens the grip of the mind in an almost natural way. Love it.

I've been playing with this statement for a few weeks now. Especially when it comes to other people, I feel like I can appreciate them in a whole new light. There's a sense of "truly meeting someone" when I'm holding back on my conclusions about them.

I still continued exploring the emotional scale and found it extremely helpful at the lower emotions. There's something magical about seeing that your emotions aren't fixed and don't have to define you. A very sneaky, pleasant way to get out of it I'd say. Feeling like a wizard indeed!

Out of the entire scale, enthusiasm always feels the most natural to me. It's like coming home, somewhat of an "exhale" every time I return to that version of myself that is just eager to create with a million ideas firing.

In this infinitely large field of self help and spirituality, nothing ever helped me as greatly as working with my feelings, letting them become my guides and advisors. It really took me some years of trial and error but more and more I'm feeling like I'm carving a path that truly works for me. Just putting all the puzzle pieces together slowly.

“The meditative mind is the result of not only meditation, but of astute emotional expression & understanding.”

In case somebody wants to check it out:
https://www.actualityofbeing.com/the-emotional-scale 

All that being said, that damn car is something I do want closure on though. Thank you very much for the endless times we stood still on the side of the road, eating pizza, not knowing what to do. Good times, good times @ThinAir 

[flume]

I'm in tears. Peace is here my friends.

 

[ThinAir]

On 1.5.2021 at 9:00 PM, flume said:

Good times, good times @ThinAir 

 always an honor ??❤️

[flume]

I think I need a BLOG 

The topics I’m wanting to write about just piled up massively over the past weeks and I'm slowly realising that I'll never run out of things to talk/reflect about.

Journaling on here is something I never imagined I'd follow through on. It kind of just happened. Never before in my life did I have enough self esteem to put myself out there in any way. I'd pretty much delete everything after a maximum of 3 weeks. Be it social media accounts, videos, music... Anything really. I thought I'm just being ridiculous thinking I could influence people in a helpful way.

The thing I cursed most about this forum in the beginning (not being able to edit or delete posts) now turns out to have been greatly in my favour. Funny how those things work out sometimes.

Honestly though, that moment I get to sit down and write about something I've thought about deeply or a new connection I've made... It's just totally my favourite time of the day. Me, my laptop, a cup of tea and a mind full of ideas: My most cherished time.

Yes, I love reading and talking to people and all that, but the moment I "make it my own" always hits the sweet spot. The fulfilment I get out of doing that is unmatched. It feels like I'm all alone in the universe, tapping into the joy of seeing clearly and insight just arises effortlessly. My love for writing is just so big, I could never put it into words.

 

Influence really is an interesting thing. What I put out there doesn't reach many people (in comparison to others) but still: I've gotten feedback of people around me saying "By watching your video I've realised this is the way I wanna live" or "Hey I bought this book you recommended to me" or "I always do this thing you mentioned before going to sleep" or "What you were writing there really shifted something inside of me". I mean... That's crazy!!! Something in their life changed because of something I said or wrote? What!?

 

I'm not really intending to get some kind of huge following, it's just a great outlet for me. A way to organise my thoughts and work on things I love.

If I can make someone else feel something by capturing the things that are going on inside of me, that is totally heaven. The best compliment I've ever gotten in my life was by someone who just read a part of my dream journal. After he finished he said "If I ever were to write a book, I'd ask you to co-author it because you're so great at expressing things. It's like I can visually see what you're writing in front of me by reading these lines."

 

There are a few issues I have with this forum though. This journal just doesn't give me all the options I'd want. The picture quality is probably my biggest issue. It's frustrating to size down my pictures so massively, it really makes them look like nothing special. The intent behind them gets totally lost as soon as they pixel so much.

I also feel like it's time to leave this forum soon. I'm not really getting anything out of the discussions anymore, I haven't watched Leos content in forever and I don't know... It's just time to move on.

 

Let's see what this could turn into. A blog? My own website? Really?  Aww, I'm already dreaming about the different tabs I'd like to have like Personal Blog, Music, Vlogs, Poetry, Portraits, Book Reviews, Best Resources, Portraits, Farming, Trip Reports, MBTI, Recipes, Favourite Quotes and a Contact tab where people can send me messages and chat about things that interest us. Or you know, just one of these endless scrolling blogs where it's just "One damned thing after another" (Churchill) 

Let's see.

I'm excited. Many things up ahead.

[flume]

We planted potatoes today (Yes, it's a late year).

The gist: You put one potato into the soil, wait for 6 months, dig it up again and you suddenly have 12. Now tell me again that miracles don't exist.

 

[fridjonk]

We have a small potato garden as well, love picking them up every year. 

And is that a Fendt tractor? If so, you guys appreciate quality machinery.  

Edited May 4, 2021 by fridjonk

[flume]

On 04/05/2021 at 9:00 PM, fridjonk said:

We have a small potato garden as well, love picking them up every year. 

Cool! Did you plant them already?

On 04/05/2021 at 9:00 PM, fridjonk said:

And is that a Fendt tractor? If so, you guys appreciate quality machinery.  

You bet! A 1983 F231 GTS

[flume]

If I ever get to look back on my life, this would totally be a moment I'd want to zoom in on again: A chill Saturday afternoon on the floor, stretching, cuddling, listening to a Matt Kahn online event with my best buddy on a micro-dose, eating lots of fruit.

Yep.

The good life.

[flume]

In your light I learn how to love

[flume]

This is truly a dream come true.

I wanted a designated writing spot in my apartment for such a long time. Now I finally found the perfect little table on my parents attic. On it, all my favourite and most inspiring books for writing I found so far. Above it, the first lines of Henry David Thoreaus poem "The Inward Morning". My heart still drops every time I read those lines.

The picture quality is killing my soul D:

[flume]

Here's what I thought I'd do today: Meditate, read, take notes on a video, write an article for work, go run some errands.

Here's what I did: Took a bath, do yoga, go to the bank, watch a video, make syrup out of things I found in the forest, make a blog post, edit a video, play piano.

All great things. I loved all of it.

So where's the problem?

Maybe there isn't one.

No problem? What am I gonna do without a problem? 

I think the self help industry tricked me into believing that, if I don't have a plan, I'm basically regressing or something. But if I zoom out in an "objective" way, I get way more things done now than ever before and I'm also enjoying myself a lot more. Inspiration is huge. But it's also hard to predict. I sometimes feel like I'm the only person without a plan. On the flip side of that, I seem flexible enough to pick up on things other people have no room for. I feel lucky to even be able to live that way. My work allows me to explore things I'm interested in and is also pretty flexible and light on my schedule. You could say it all works out in the end.

Aw, it's just becoming increasingly weird to think about "my way of doing things". There just isn't one. It's like I'm still waiting for the day that I'm gonna wake up with some kind of ultimate game plan for my life. "Here it is people. I figured it out. This is what I'm gonna do with my life." Just reading what I wrote above I'm like "Eww... Something's off." Even the "positive" things I wrote feel like a prison. None of that actually describes me. I'm tempted to just delete it again. Something tells me, that that way of thinking just leads nowhere. Didn't I even write about that some posts earlier? I think I did... I've even had some weird moments with people around me giving me compliments or criticising something and I felt like none of the things they're saying describe me in any way. More on that maybe some other time... Back to the topic:

It's crazy how motivated it once got me to hear Leo ramble about "creating your dream life", "getting your shit together" and "make a plan". Now these things irritate me for the most part. It even makes me a little anxious, like I'm gonna be miserable because I'm constantly missing something if I'm not "proactive". AH! Just leave me alone with that shit. It's wild how difficult it is to shake off that mindset.

[flume]

I had these clips pending in my editor for weeks now. I didn't know what to do with them. I couldn't think of a narrative for the video and I had a strong urge to just leave it bare. No flashy overlays with music or text, no coherent story to tell... But it feels right

 

[Michael569]

This was so wonderful on so many levels. The lambs melted my heart. When you gave a burial to the bird and then sang" nearer my god to the"e by the lake..I caught myself smiling with my head tilted like a child

The quality of this video and the artistic components are incredible. I feel like I should be recommending this video to some of my guys as a "how to slow down in live and enjoy the moment"

Oh and happy (probably late) B-Day!

[SoothedByRain]

@flume Damn, you live on a beautiful farm!?!? You lucky monkey. Enjoy it

P.S Edit. Subbed!

Edited May 21, 2021 by SoothedByRain

[flume]

@Michael569 How kind! Thanks for the feedback! Much love as always 

@SoothedByRain I'm very lucky indeed. Even though I "only" work there and actually live in the city Happy it made you subscribe. All the best!

[Manusia]

@flume Whats your camera flume? Its really good... I really love in your vlog style too. Your enviroment is SO amazing.. beautiful! Cant wait to see more of your video..