Pam Stucky is amazing. She is an accomplished author, blogger and all around fun person. Check out her stuff at pamstucky.com or follow her on twitter @pamstucky. She asked me to answer some questions and I think ya'll will enjoy my answers. Okay bye. :P
Q: Three adjectives that describe you?
funny, compassionate, curious
Q: What are your passions in life?
> reading, writing, people, gaming, making a difference
>
> Q: You do work with Sustainable Seattle [correct name?]. What is that, what is your involvement with it, and why?
> I am a board member of Sustainable Seattle because I believe that the only way to move forward is to focus on the needs and desires of people. Sustainability has an automatic connection to environmental concerns, but it misses the most important part of meeting our needs, meeting the needs of the people. We are an organization dedicated to collaboration, stewardship and social justice.
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> Q: Part of the Sustainable Seattle project is the Seattle Area Happiness Initiative. How is did happiness get bundled up with a sustainable city project?
Happiness is not just a feeling; it is a sense of wellness and true contentment. We as a society have never really looked at contentment and wellness as real goals. We are too concerned with material goods and "keeping up with the Jones's." This is why we have such a huge disparity between the rich and the poor. The rich think that if they got their next million they would finally be happy, but with that next million they are still unsatisfied.
Only through looking at happiness as a collection of different domains: psychological well being, material well being, community vitality, cultural vitality, health, governance, environmental quality, time balance and education can we get to a place that leads to real contentment.
Q: What are the elements of a happy life? What makes you happy? What can other people do to make themselves happier?
> A happy life is one that is first and foremost about building and maintaining healthy relationships. Relationship with others, our environment and the most neglected relationship, with ourselves.
What makes me happy is helping others live up to their potential. What makes me happy is knowing that I have been a part of something that helped others. What makes me happy is dancing, music, spending time doing nothing with people I care about.
First step in becoming happy is to choose to make your own happiness a priority in your life. Happiness is not a feeling, but a state of being.
>
> Q: You are also an author. Tell us about your works, past, present, future. What are you working on most right now?
> I wouldn't call myself an author since I do not follow the number one rule of every writer I've ever read, "Not a day without writing." I am working on mostly a novel about a group of high school teens in a very atypical neighborhood based on my hometown. It is a story about what real friendship is all about and an experiment in writing without editing.
I'm only editing grammar, spelling and consistency. I'm letting the chapters and story flow in whatever shape it wants. I have chapters that involve gaming, love, homelessness, education reform, evil PTA's and a founding of a town. It is really fun and I'm writing it to prove to myself that a novel is something I can complete. I'm actually really enjoying the process and the characters are so much fun to write.
I'm at the point where I cannot just throw them around anymore. I have to sometimes stop myself from making a character say something that would not come out of their mouth, or if it does I write the reactions from the others to reflect the strangeness of what they just said. I'm having fun and that really is what writing is all about.
>
> Q: Where do you get the inspiration for your stories?
My stories come from my reading, my life, and my imagination. I've been making up stories and characters all my life. My brother and I used to play "choose your own adventure" stories when I was younger. He was the game master and their were no rules and most of the time I ended up getting squished by Grimlok the Transformer T-Rex.
>
>
> Q: What one book do you wish you'd written, and why?
The one book that I wish I had written would most likely be "The Outsiders." The book is timeless because it deals with the fundamental question of humanity "What am I worth? Where do I belong? What really matters?" I must have read that book 30 times.
>
>
> Q: Describe a favorite childhood memory.
> One day I was climbing a tree and I must have been 20 feet up easily. My mother was upset because I hadn't cleaned my room before I went outside. She was at the bottom of the tree yelling at me to come down right now. "Right now?" I said. "Now!" she said. So I jumped out of the tree.
Q: Music you're listening to these days?
Coheed and Cambria, Lapfox, Muse, Lady Gaga
Q: Hobbies, secret talents, goals, dreams?
Hobbies: gaming, reading, cooking,drawing, dancing and singing.
Secret talent? I can understand where almost anyone is coming from. I can see their intent even when I disagree with their actions.
Goal: To live a life worth living.
Dream: To live a life day to day that is meaningful, fun and never looking forward, but being fully present at this very moment.
Showing posts with label life. Show all posts
Showing posts with label life. Show all posts
Sunday, June 5, 2011
Friday, March 18, 2011
The Flow Campaign 3/20-3/27 Issue 2
3/20-3/27 Issue 2
The Time Balance Question The Happiness initiative is in full swing and some of the results from the general survey in the Seattle area are now available on our website. The most glaring result was in the domain of Time Balance with the general survey results showing our lowest score. The most challenging of the nine domains seems to be how to spend the time we have. So today we will focus on some ideas and actions that will free up some of the most precious of our resources: our time. Americans spend the majority of their waking time at work. We spend on average nearly nine and a half hours in some sort of connection to work. We sleep an average of eight hours and the rest of the time we spend in various ways. The non-work time of six and a half hours is cut into eating, relaxing and such with the largest amount going to watching TV. We on average watch twenty eight hours of TV a week. That comes out to about four hours a day. 1. Give the Television a rest. Do not have the TV on as only background as we get drawn in. Only turn the TV on when there is something you wish to watch in particular. 2. Do some morning routines at night before bed: coffee, showering, laying out clothes, make a to-do list for the next day. All these activities will free up your morning. 3. Plan ahead. This includes making grocery lists, to do lists, and setting goals. For every minute of planning we can get five additional minutes of work done. This week’s organization to check out is www.crosscut.com This week’s book recommendation is Jane Goodall’s Reason for Hope a memoir that chronicles Goodall’s journey towards peace. Sign up for the weekly newsletter here. | David Brooks Time Balance, Community Monday, March 21, 2011 | 7:30 – 9pm  Lecture: What if everything we thought we knew about human nature is wrong? The Responsible Business Material, Community Thursday March 24, 2011 9:00 AM - 5:00 PM  The Responsible Business is about a new and strategic approach to doing business that holistically integrates responsibility. Congressman McDermott Citizen Chat Governance, Community Saturday March 26, 2011 10:00 AM - 11:00 AM  Congressman McDermott will be holding constituent coffee hours in coffee shops around the city, and he’s decided to hold his first coffee hour in West Seattle. | |
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Tuesday, March 15, 2011
Yoga Dance! (Said in the voice of Dhalsim)
I've been practicing Yoga for about a month now and I'm getting better. Today a new instructor started at the gym and he was straight to business. He ran us through a couple of minutes of warm ups that left about thirty percent of the class sweating and then started the actual workout.
One of the most interesting experiences to have is to practice Yoga with different instructors. Each Yogi brings their own personality and twist to the practice and I have never had two practices that were exactly alike. I enjoy Vinyasa or Flow Yoga where the poses are held in short bursts and instead flow into other poses quickly like a dance. I do think that I prefer what I call "power" Yoga better though.
Power Yoga involves many poses held for a great length of time. There is a logical sequence to the poses, but not much in the way of variety. The routine is repeated and the poses seem to focus on either upper body, or lower body strength depending on the instructor. Today the instructor was working our arms in every pose from Warrior One, Warrior Two all the way to Warrior Three (which I have never done before tonight). I prefer Power Yoga because I can get almost to muscle failure especially in my arms and if you have never experienced true muscle failure you should as long as you do it in a safe, well structured environment.
Yoga to me allows me to finally be silent. I talk a lot and anyone who knows me knows this very well. I talk to smooth, soothe and cajole. I blab to excuse, entice and excite, but when I'm practicing Yoga, I can just be silent and listen to me. I find a peace there that combined with vigorous exercise gives me such a sense of "everything is okay." I need that feeling in my life.
Of course, I don't practice everyday, but I do find that any sort of vigorous exercise has that same effect on me. I've always been an athlete and physicality touches every part of my life some way or the other. I dance when I'm singing in the shower. I dance when I'm walking to work (it also doubles as a defense mechanism) and I often give my downstairs neighbors a little bit of the "pound-pound-pound-what-the-hell-are they-doing-up-there" style of techno dancing.
I've gotten better at being sensitive to others and I don't wake up singing at the top of my lungs like a did a few years ago to the delight of my six other roommates I'm sure, but I do still enjoy a good ol fashion physical, musical, spiritual release. I'm turning towards the simple pleasures more and more as I see the shortness and suddenness of this life. I want to live every moment and if that's the case, I should supply a soundtrack.
One of the most interesting experiences to have is to practice Yoga with different instructors. Each Yogi brings their own personality and twist to the practice and I have never had two practices that were exactly alike. I enjoy Vinyasa or Flow Yoga where the poses are held in short bursts and instead flow into other poses quickly like a dance. I do think that I prefer what I call "power" Yoga better though.
Power Yoga involves many poses held for a great length of time. There is a logical sequence to the poses, but not much in the way of variety. The routine is repeated and the poses seem to focus on either upper body, or lower body strength depending on the instructor. Today the instructor was working our arms in every pose from Warrior One, Warrior Two all the way to Warrior Three (which I have never done before tonight). I prefer Power Yoga because I can get almost to muscle failure especially in my arms and if you have never experienced true muscle failure you should as long as you do it in a safe, well structured environment.
Yoga to me allows me to finally be silent. I talk a lot and anyone who knows me knows this very well. I talk to smooth, soothe and cajole. I blab to excuse, entice and excite, but when I'm practicing Yoga, I can just be silent and listen to me. I find a peace there that combined with vigorous exercise gives me such a sense of "everything is okay." I need that feeling in my life.
Of course, I don't practice everyday, but I do find that any sort of vigorous exercise has that same effect on me. I've always been an athlete and physicality touches every part of my life some way or the other. I dance when I'm singing in the shower. I dance when I'm walking to work (it also doubles as a defense mechanism) and I often give my downstairs neighbors a little bit of the "pound-pound-pound-what-the-hell-are they-doing-up-there" style of techno dancing.
I've gotten better at being sensitive to others and I don't wake up singing at the top of my lungs like a did a few years ago to the delight of my six other roommates I'm sure, but I do still enjoy a good ol fashion physical, musical, spiritual release. I'm turning towards the simple pleasures more and more as I see the shortness and suddenness of this life. I want to live every moment and if that's the case, I should supply a soundtrack.
Friday, March 11, 2011
I love life.
I'm not going to try and have a constructive blog here. I'm just going to let the words come out as they come to my head. Usually I have a theme, a plan, I don't go as far as having an index or an outline, but usually I do have a point I want to get across. This is one of those times after all.
My heart is broken by what is happening in Japan. The biggest earthquake on record and feared hundreds and possibly thousands dead. I'm sitting here just stunned and broken. I never understand the reason behind events like this. I believe in a rational world of some sort. I have to.
I was raised as a Christian of the classical sense and the one thing I took from that past was that at the very least their should be some reason behind what happens here on Earth. There was a person in charge even if I now disagree with pretty much 80% of what that person says, there was a reason.
Natural disasters throw that idea out of the window. There is no possible reason for an earthquake that kills hundreds or thousands and no benevolent creature would sit back and allow it to happen. I just want to say that for the record the idea of a "master plan" that involves the deaths of innocents is evil. Evil.
I am so in love with being alive. I live everyday trying to squeeze in as much life as I can. I don't like to sit still or just watch things past me by. I have to live like it will end at any moment because it can and it does. I'm so grateful to the people in my life who have put up with my foibles, problems and short comings. I wouldn't know what I would do if I didn't feel the love of the people close to me everyday in my heart.
This world is all we have. This life is what is important. This place we live is all we are sure of. We have to seize everyday. We need to be open, kind, and take the actions that are necessary to enhance our lives. I'm moving forward. I won't live in fear anymore. I'm going to do the things I want to and I am going to help others on their own chosen path.
We only have each other. We have to see the hurt and the pain and the suffering and do something about it. No wishes, or charms or wards will help those who need it. We have to pick up the spades and the shovels and get to it. No more waiting, no more delay.
I remember when the Tsunami hit in 2004 and the world was shaken to its core. That disaster left 200,000 dead and South East Asia is still not fully recovered as if they ever could be. I remember the blood banks in the United States turning people away because they had too much blood to handle from the donations that came spilling in. That day was probably the proudest I've ever been of my country when we gave so much of our money, time and blood that we had to be turned away. I've never forgotten the heart ache those days brought and it opened my eyes to the fleetingness of this life.
Some would say that the very quickness of life is the reason we should be aware or alarmed for the next one. That argument makes no logical sense. We are alive now, here. We are experiencing the fullness of this world with every breath and every sigh. I'm not waiting for Heaven because this place can be paradise if we stop the silliness and misguided notion that we are separate. We have to be humanists first because it is the only thing we have control of. We can do better and we can grow and we can take the blinders off. See that we are all connected. What happens to you is also happening to me.
My heart is broken by what is happening in Japan. The biggest earthquake on record and feared hundreds and possibly thousands dead. I'm sitting here just stunned and broken. I never understand the reason behind events like this. I believe in a rational world of some sort. I have to.
I was raised as a Christian of the classical sense and the one thing I took from that past was that at the very least their should be some reason behind what happens here on Earth. There was a person in charge even if I now disagree with pretty much 80% of what that person says, there was a reason.
Natural disasters throw that idea out of the window. There is no possible reason for an earthquake that kills hundreds or thousands and no benevolent creature would sit back and allow it to happen. I just want to say that for the record the idea of a "master plan" that involves the deaths of innocents is evil. Evil.
I am so in love with being alive. I live everyday trying to squeeze in as much life as I can. I don't like to sit still or just watch things past me by. I have to live like it will end at any moment because it can and it does. I'm so grateful to the people in my life who have put up with my foibles, problems and short comings. I wouldn't know what I would do if I didn't feel the love of the people close to me everyday in my heart.
This world is all we have. This life is what is important. This place we live is all we are sure of. We have to seize everyday. We need to be open, kind, and take the actions that are necessary to enhance our lives. I'm moving forward. I won't live in fear anymore. I'm going to do the things I want to and I am going to help others on their own chosen path.
We only have each other. We have to see the hurt and the pain and the suffering and do something about it. No wishes, or charms or wards will help those who need it. We have to pick up the spades and the shovels and get to it. No more waiting, no more delay.
I remember when the Tsunami hit in 2004 and the world was shaken to its core. That disaster left 200,000 dead and South East Asia is still not fully recovered as if they ever could be. I remember the blood banks in the United States turning people away because they had too much blood to handle from the donations that came spilling in. That day was probably the proudest I've ever been of my country when we gave so much of our money, time and blood that we had to be turned away. I've never forgotten the heart ache those days brought and it opened my eyes to the fleetingness of this life.
Some would say that the very quickness of life is the reason we should be aware or alarmed for the next one. That argument makes no logical sense. We are alive now, here. We are experiencing the fullness of this world with every breath and every sigh. I'm not waiting for Heaven because this place can be paradise if we stop the silliness and misguided notion that we are separate. We have to be humanists first because it is the only thing we have control of. We can do better and we can grow and we can take the blinders off. See that we are all connected. What happens to you is also happening to me.
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