Lucid Heart

Political Discourse : Rules of Engagement

These are my personal rules of engagement if you wish to engage in political discourse with me. It is my offering to others that may wish to abide by these or similar rules to help improve the experience, which has become nasty and downright aggressive and violent in recent election cycles.

Rule #1 : Be Respectful : No Ad Hominem. I have a zero tolerance policy on this one. Look, we all get upset sometimes and say things we regret. I’m not asking for perfection from you. However, if you do lash out personally, I will expect an apology from you, and an admission that you’ve overstepped a boundary. Also, it is helpful to say something like, “I shall endeavor to refrain from Ad Hominem in the future”. If you can’t abide by this rule on my wall, you will be blocked. If you can’t abide by this rule on your wall, I will simply un-follow your wall/posts and not engage with you anymore.

Rules #2 : Fact Check : Prior to posting a link to support your argument, please do a basic fact checking search using your search engine of choice. Research and studies are preferred over opinion articles. Though opinion pieces do have their place, and are not strictly forbidden. Here is a list of some fact checking websites.

Rule #3 : Listen : In the recommendations below, you’ll see reference to the Straw Man fallacy. This is most often used/abused because someone has failed to actually listen. They hear something other than what the other person has actually said. Before responding with a knee jerk response, sit with what has been said and try and understand what has actually been said by someone, and not what you think you heard/read.

Strongly Recommend : Logic Fallacy Awareness

In addition to the above rules, I have some strong recommendations and considerations that I ask of people. To truly have a constructive conversation, it is helpful to have a basic understand of logic fallacies. While they do have a place in discussion and can’t be entirely avoided all the time, it’s important to understand how they hinder and undermine constructive discourse. Please have a look at https://yourlogicalfallacyis.com/ for some basic information about logic fallacies. Here are some of the most widely abused logic fallacies, with examples.

Fallacy #1 : Straw Man Fallacy : Misrepresenting someone’s argument to make it easier to attack them. One of the most widely abuses of this was when Colin Kaepernick took a knee to protest police violence against people of color. Many people accused him of disrespecting those in the armed forces, which actually had nothing to do with his views or his protest. In fact, he took a knee, instead of completely ignoring the national anthem altogether as a way to show respect for the armed forces while still bringing attention to his concerns.

Fallacy #2 : Guilt by Association : This most commonly comes out when people use words like “Liberals” and “Conservatives”, or “The Left”, and “The Right”. Also, even “Democrats” and “Republicans”. This is one of the most divisive aspects of political discourse these days. The moment someone is identified as falling into one of these groups, “listening” all but disappears. There can be little constructive discourse when people are demonized by associating them with what is perceived as a nebulous group of bad, or evil people. I make great efforts to avoid using these categorizations, and even steer clear of news outlets that rely too heavily on them in their reporting.

Fallacy #3 : Ad Hominem (extended) : By extended, I mean to suggest we ought to avoid Ad Hominem against the political figures we’re discussing. The following name calling is childish and pointless. Killary, Crooked Hillary, Cheeto anything. I can’t believe this is a thing with supposed grown adults.

Call Me Ash

You can call me Ash. Yes. That is my chosen name for myself. To me, the name Ash has a deep connection to the Phoenix, rising from the ashes. It represents rebirth to me. It represents nurturing growth.

On more than one occasion in life, I have felt a change in my core. A change so profound, that the person I used to be is little more than a shadow, hanging on in the form of voices in my head, and sometimes reactive emotions in my body. These shadow voices and emotions, while definitely a part of who I am as a whole, often don’t represent the person I have become. The me of today wants those ashes from my past, and they also don’t define me.

Why today? Why now?

A few years back, I hinted that I chose a feminine identity for myself, without revealing that name unless asked. The reasons for doing that were many. It was an exploration into how culture had informed me what masculinity means and what it doesn’t mean. On one level, it was a way for me to explore what masculinity was in my core, and what parts were learned. It was my intention to shed the masculine identities and behaviors enforced upon me by culture, to adopt something more authentic and real. That meant exploring what femininity meant as well. It was also a way to explore more authentic ways to write from a female perspective. I sometimes write fictional stories when inspired to, and I wanted to be able to write from the voice of a woman. Choosing a feminine name to identity with was part of that exploratory process.

The name I strongly identified with was Aisling (Ash-Lin) Love. It roughly translates to Dream or Vision. And those that know me, know how important dreams and visualization are to my spiritual practice. Those that know me will get it.

All the times I had explored masculine names for myself, nothing ever seemed to stick. It was super hard to shed my given name in my mind for something else. So it always ended with me not finding a name that felt right.

A few weeks back, my employer and the team I was on collectively agreed to offer a lead developer role to someone with the same given name that I had. And there was some casual conversations about one of us finding a nick name to go by. That process also felt like nothing was sticking for either of us. And that’s when I decided to revisit the idea of a new name for myself. Not a given name, but a chosen name.

Since nothing from my past exploratory thoughts had produced results, I decided to explore something based off the feminine name I had previously connected with. And the answer was immediate and strong. Ash, from Aisling. It just rolled so smoothly for me to say that name. And the connection to the Phoenix and rebirth was immediate as well. It seemed to all come together in a single moment.

When I brought the name to my coworkers, they were immediately and unquestionably supportive. We happened to be in two weeks of training and team building, and the facilitators were absolutely fantastic at reaffirming the new name at every opportunity. They were calling me Ash in front of the entire office multiple times per day. So the name has sunk in with everyone I work with.

You can call me Ash. And, I also understand and honor if you have an attachment to me using my given name. I don’t hate my given name by any stretch. For now, there are no plans for a legal name change.

The Moth – Caught – True Stories Told Live

On Monday, April 2nd, 2018, I got up on the stage to share a story at the Moth StorySLAM in Portland Oregon for the theme of Caught. It starts with the time when I was literally caught with my pants down. No, it’s probably not what you’re thinking.

This was my eighth time on the Moth stage. While I pale in comparison to some of the great story tellers at these events, you’ve got to admit, I am persistent.

You can view the video and hear the story by pressing the play button below.

The Moth – Midnight Oil – True Stories Told Live

The Moth - Midnight Oil - Richard Powell

On Monday, October 2nd, 2017, I got up on stage at The Moth StorySLAM here in Portland Oregon and shared the story of my king crabbing adventure in the Bering Sea after graduating high school. This one is for my dad. As I’ve learned, being a dad is about one of the most difficult things you can do in this life. Thank you for being my dad. Thank you for having high expectations of me, and pushing me to achieve. And thank you for your compassion too.

You can view the video and hear the story by pressing the play button below.

Stepping down, letting go, decompressing

For the longest time now, when someone has asked how I was doing, the only reasonable response was to say, “well, I’ve been really busy”. Which doesn’t really answer the question, does it? It leaves it up to the person asking to guess how I’m actually doing. And much of the time, the response is “that’s great”! Because in their eyes, it means that business is good.

The truth is, I have not been doing well at all. I mean, I have attained a certain level of satisfaction, and even enjoyment out of helping people with their websites. There’s no denying that I love helping people. I’ve always enjoyed helping and educating people, and I have no reason to believe I’ll stop putting myself in places where I’m helping others in one shape or another.

The problem though, is that I’ve had to be available 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, 365 days a year to deal with all manner of problems. That critical customer call can come at any moment. Like when I’m out watching a movie, playing a game with my son, relaxing at the beach, or deep in a most excellent and rejuvenating dream adventure. The interruptions, or worry about possible interruptions have been substantial. I don’t remember what it feels like to live without this constant stress hovering over my head.

Even when the calls are not coming in, I absolutely can’t let a single day pass without spending an hour pruning my email inbox, lest it become immediately overflowing and take weeks to clean out all of the maintenance and customer requests demanding my attention.

Then, while trying to catch up from a day or two of inbox neglect, having some critical issue arrive, like an unexpected hacking event just throws me that much further behind.

I have always loved computers and programming, and I believe that I still do. However, when I’m interrupted by hackers, the occasional irrational customer demanding that I cleanup after their mistakes, or a tax or business related deadline requiring my attention, it quickly detracts from the things I enjoy most about this business I’ve been in.

I have been trying for a few years now to find a way forward that doesn’t involve stepping down, and I’ve come up empty at every turn.

For the sake of my health, both physical and mental, I have decided to sell my web hosting and design business and step down from running any kind of business at all for the immediate future.

The first question that I’ve been asked by friends and family is, “what are you going to do”? So I wanted to answer that question here. In terms of work, or a job, I’m going to do absolutely nothing for at least 4 to 6 months. The reason for this is because I don’t know what I really want to do. My mind is so fucking cluttered up with chatter that I think I may actually take some sick enjoyment out of stressful work. I need to decompress from thinking that I must always be checking my email and knocking items off of my to do list. I need to quiet my mind for a while so I can gain some clarity.

Outside of work, I plan to focus on being more healthy. I quit drinking alcohol in 2009, but I’ve continued an unhealthy relationship with food that I’ve never managed to address. I will always be at risk of type 2 diabetes and I need to develop healthy habits in accordance with that understanding.

I’m going to take the summer mostly off and do things with my 11 year old son without having work as an excuse to neglect him or not spend time with him. I’m going to cook for him, the same healthy meals that I’m making for myself. I’m going to play games that my logical grown up mind thinks are stupid, because he finds them entertaining. I’m going to laugh about it.

I’m going to pursue a dream that I’ve held since I was a child, and have been too afraid to follow through on. Ever since the time my dad flew me on a float plane out to his boat on the Alaska peninsula I’ve held this dream and tucked it away deep inside. I’m going to pursue getting my private pilot’s license and get certified for float planes as well.

I’m not holding too many expectations when it comes to all the details, and I’m not going to stress about it. As with my epic solo bike ride of 2014, where I didn’t always know where each day would take me, that’s what I’m going to do for a while. I’m just going to see where the general focus of health, parenting, and piloting take me. Oh, and I might do some writing too!