I started taking Aikido in late 2011.

It’s the flow. I’ve always been attracted to martial arts, but Aikido is so unlike everything else that, like Tai Chi, it’s more of an art.

Part of me suspects I wanted to look and act like a Jedi. Not a bad reason, if you ask me.

So I found a local dojo, took an intro class, and was hooked. We had a great sensei, and the students were overall a good bunch. I kept going through a difficult breakup and terrible work stress.

Then, six months later, I just stopped, and I don’t know why exactly.

There’s a bee swarm of incoherent rage that’s been in my head the past week or two. The unconscionable separation and detainment of children by our administration, on top of the other abuses that we’ve endured since January 2017, is so mind-bogglingly enormous that it’s practically inconceivable.

It’s been a struggle continuing to live a mundane life – feeding Olly, going to work, having fun – while attempting to do something about our terrible government. It’s the knife’s edge of burnout, where doing too little (or nothing at all) is unethical, but doing too much will consume you and break your back. Until recently, my tactics were two: 1) fund orgs like the ACLU who challenge unconscionable actions, and 2) write my representatives when, ehem, encouragement is needed to do the right thing.

I didn’t want to wade into this whole thing (I’ve written enough about religion for a good while now), but after the insipid comments by a certain press secretary, I had to comment.

The apostle Paul, formerly Saul of Tarsus, was an absolute bloke.

For all the fraught ambivalence over God I’ve wrestled with lately, it never occurred to me that I could just be a garden-variety Pantheist. I dismissed it outright in my last post on this subject, wondering whether I was really finding God when looking on nature, or just expressing wonder.

Well, how do things look from a Pantheist perspective, where God and the universe are the same?

I have something to pray to. It’s not hard to find, when you can step outside and feel the wind on your face. It’s impermanent, changing constantly. There are no theological gymnastics to jump through, but it’s also not the rabbit hole of woo that I’ve found new age traditions to be. It will never be at odds with science.

I heard recently on a project management podcast that millennials (that is, my generation) have higher rates of phone anxiety. It was mentioned in passing, but with the subtext that we young’uns just don’t know how to talk to people anymore.

So. Yes, I have phone anxiety. But I can tell you that I didn’t always have it, and the cause isn’t texting too much, or whatever the excuse de jour is.

I had a teaching moment recently. Any personality flaw or shortcoming can be addressed with enough time and energy, but usually it’s better to find an easier path than try to pursue it with brute force.

Be kind to yourself during your screw-ups. Know that no journey is pre-ordained.

(Also, see your therapist every once in a while. It’s good for the heart.)

There’s one episode of the cartoon series Doug that I recall in vivid detail. Doug and his classmates are playing baseball. Everyone’s doing fine, except poor Doug, who keeps striking out. It’s late in the game, the score’s tied, and Doug’s up to bat. Patti notices something: Doug, who’s a leftie, is swinging from the right. She corrects Doug’s form, he hits the ball, and the game is won.

It’s ridiculous, right? Something so obvious – Doug being a southpaw – getting overlooked by Doug himself when he tries to swing a bat. How could anyone overlook something like that?

Yeah, well, have I got a story for you. See, I’d been under the impression that I was a Theist for the past few years. And it didn’t occur to me, until after some intense introspection, that I’m actually not.

But that doesn’t make me an atheist.

During intense periods of stress, my creativity shrivels up like a dried mushroom. Writing, in particular, seems to run out completely when I’m overworked.

Like for the past month, for instance.

My life isn’t getting any easier, alas. If anything, I’m taking on more challenges in my professional and personal life.

But I do wish the well hadn’t run dry.

In retrospect, it might have been a mistake to give Facebook all of my personal information in exchange for seeing what my high school friends eat for dinner

— Kelvin Yu (@InternetKelvin) March 20, 2018

When the news broke about Cambridge Analytica obtaining personal information on Facebook for use in a presidential campaign, I shouldn’t have been surprised. And yet.

I am pleased to announce that my short story “Mold” will be appearing in a forthcoming anthology! Survivor, edited by Mary Anne Mohanraj and JJ Pionke, will be released by Lethe Press in Summer 2018. Pre-order the anthology here.

A big thanks to Alison McMahon, Karl Dandenell, Jocelyn Kirby, and others for their insightful input during the development of this story. It took a long journey from first draft to publication, but now the public will get a chance to read it.