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No such thing as bad weather ...

a small synchronicity

I'm writing this because I've now read this quote twice (attributed differently both times, but I mean, it's the Internet) today, and I've never seen it before:

There's no such thing as bad weather, just bad clothing choices.

in "Dreading a dark winter lockdown? Think like a Norwegian" (Robson, /The Guardian/)

and in "Life is short. But not short enough to skip planning" (Andrea, /Where parallels cross/)

I feel that there's something important about this quote coming to me at this time in my life, and I'm enough of a student of Jung (meaning, I've read one book of his in a University Psychology course) to think that I should listen to it.

some backstory, or This Weekend Wasn't Great

I got an electric bike for my birthday this year. My wife, my parents, and her parents all pitched in to give me the money to buy it. I researched and researched and finally settled on one, then ordered it and waited some more, until it arrived in a big box on Thursday.

I was thinking I could put it together myself until I thought more about it, and thought I couldn't put it together myself, then I thought maybe I could but get it checked out by a local bike shop, but then that was fraught ... I'll spare you the agonizing details. Suffice it to say that I spent almost all of Saturday in a complete and total mess about the whole thing, and generally felt extremely down and didn't want to do anything at all.

Yesterday, Sunday, I finally decided, "Let's put this thing together and see what happens." I did, and got it mostly done -- I just haven't been able to affix the caliper on the front brake, and I want to make sure I properly tensioned the other parts on the bike. Small stuff like that. It didn't catch fire, it didn't fall over and invalidate all that time and effort and money my whole family put into it for me, I was okay. I still slept a lot yesterday, but I think that's due to my general depression, which I need to see someone for again, and which the whole Saturday thing was really just an outgrowth of.

This is all to say

I don't believe in /fate/, per se, but rather that things happen. Like, everything happens, all of the time. And that the reasons why we notice certain things happening at certain times is because we're in the place to receive those things. Like, all the all the radio frequencies are always broadcasting, right? But your radio only picks up the station you've set it to. So you're going to hear the things that that station puts out, and then, of course, layer upon layer, you're going to interpret it the way that you're going to based on how you're feeling, how you were raised, what's happened to you, etc.

So I don't believe in /fate/, since that's messenger-based. I don't think there's an organizing principle to the universe. But I /do/ think that things happen that can help you out if you're listening to them. And I think that's what the quote above is saying, and I think that's what I got from hearing it, and I'm glad I did. I see a light, I suppose, at the end of the tunnel (no, not /that/ light! Not /that/ tunnel!).

Anyway, be well.