Sung to the tune of “He’s a lumberjack and that’s okay”, I am now a human pincushion. Or at least an occasional one.
My diabetes isn’t as under control as I would like, too much sedentary behaviour in the last two years in particular, as well as changed meds that are better for me but have some side effects. My A1C number has crept higher in recent months so time to do something “different”.
No, not insulin, I’m not at that level of difficulty, but they do want to add another medicine to my regimen. Namely one called Ozempic. I was okay with adding one, no biggie I thought as I’m already taking four pills and one of them is hard on my stomach so can’t up the dosage any higher. Except the new one? It’s an injected one.
They started off saying that I would be doing injections IN MY STOMACH, but that wasn’t likely to happen. I couldn’t see ANY way I would be up for that, at least not before I tried my first injection today. Needles in my STOMACH? Pass.
On the plus side, it’s only once a week. But it’s a layer of complication I would rather do without. I did my “training” today by video with a nurse, she walked me through my first injection.
Clean my hands, obviously;
Clean the head of the pen (it’s like an Epi pen, sort of) with an alcohol swab;
Add the needle to the pen;
Prime the needle and remove any potential air in the needle;
Clean my leg (small alcohol swab);
Set the dosage on the pen;
Insert the needle into my LEG (not my stomach) gently at 90 degrees;
Press thumb on end until it resets slowly to 0 and then hold for ten more seconds;
Remove my thumb from the end and remove pen with needle;
Put small cap back on needle, remove needle from pen, dispose of needle in a safe container (free from the pharmacy);
Store the pen + other needles, swabs back in my medicine cabinet.
Now, I generally knew the steps before I did it, and the only thing that was making me a little nervous was the actual insertion of the needle. It is incredibly small, sure, but it’s still sticking a needle in my leg.
I don’t really like needles, despite having them as a kid for years to deal with allergies. When I get one for vaccines or boosters, I try to look the other way and think of the Republic.
So I wasn’t looking forward to it today. How much would the needle hurt? And while I can’t put it in my shoulder (can’t reach around to reliably do it at 90 degrees), I figured the upper thigh would serve as my best option.
I didn’t even feel it. I probably COULD do it in the stomach if I ever need to do so. For now, I’ll just swap legs each week.
On the positive side, it helps with the diabetes, with a side benefit that it helps with weight loss too. It seems to do most of it by shrinking my stomach so I’m not hungry and don’t eat as much, so we’ll see how that goes. Doesn’t work for everyone.
In the meantime, I’m now a pincushion. And apparently, that’s okay.
I’m asking myself seven questions a week, and here are this week’s questions.
015. In what area of your life are you struggling the most and why?
I think my biggest challenge is one-half focus and one-half procrastination/laziness. I have a lot of interests, and as the isolation factor is pressing my depression and despair buttons, I am feeling very unmotivated on a lot of the options. I have what I would call “projects” although it is more like “groups of projects” that range from a writing project to doing movie reviews. For the Movie Reviews, as an example, I have organized my movie collection of DVDs, and there are thousands more on Netflix or Prime or Disney that I could watch. When I was younger, I could watch a movie and if I wanted to review it, I could probably do so up to 1-2 years later and still recall enough to go into detail. Now? I pretty much have a week and then it’s gone for anything other than generalities. But I also want to watch a number of movies with the family, yet with our schedules, we have trouble synching, and next thing you know, I’m 3 months later and haven’t watched any of them. We’re trying to do a “movie night” once a week, but even that hasn’t worked out. We also like to watch things like The Book of Boba Fett or Hawkeye, so if we finally manage to sit down together to watch, it’s easier and lighter fare to watch those than to start a movie at 8:30 at night after a busy day. Instead, I end up vegging and binging TV shows rather than movies.
I have my to-do list, and I’m making progress on stuff, but I don’t feel like I’m making huge progress on any one project area or even enough on all of them to add up. I’m going to review my list of projects this week to see if there is a way to think of them as a group, rather than individually.
016. Write down a list of small things you can do that will have a long-term positive effect.
The obvious choice are health-related, but I think there are some that serve multiple goals. Like going for a walk with Jacob around the block. It gives me progress on health, it helps Jacob with his walking/leg stretching, and we spend time together in a very light / low-intensity moment just doing something together. Games, puzzles, cooking are other options too, but they often tend to involve giving up something else to make time to do it, and we’re not always in synch for schedules.
017. A drawing, short story or poem that portrays your authentic self.
If someone asked me to represent my authentic self, I’d likely point to my blog. My frog logo means a lot to me, it represents my blog and my blog represents me. It’s not a skinny or little frog, it’s a full-sized adult frog. It has presence, substance, at least to me. Beyond that, I like the idea of Fifth Business, as suggested by the book by Robertson Davies. In it, the narrator argues that he is like “fifth business” in a classic play, after that of Hero, Heroine, Confidante, or Villain. He’s not a “main character” but contributing to the stories of others and thus important on his own. A catalyst in some ways. If I had to choose a drawing, it would likely be of a man or boy reading.
018. Which institutions and/or media outlets are you following without questioning?
That isn’t really a thing for me. Because of the way I learned to be a writer in high school, and how my grades seemed to have no correlation with my effort, I stopped caring what others thought of my writing approach. I trust my own judgement above that of others, and it trips over into everything I read or see. I can read a paper by someone I trust, and yet if they veer towards something that I don’t think is proven, my brain twigs to it pretty fast. I am, of course, still subject to confirmation bias like everyone else, but I can’t think of too many institutions nor any media outlet that I would trust. I take the parts that make sense, I tend to ignore the rest.
But that doesn’t stop me from generally trusting articles from the Wall Street Journal. I started reading it in university, and whenever I see something online that someone has linked to, I often will try to read the WSJ original article. I like their editing style, the prose resonates with me. As I said, though, not everything is worthy and I challenge their analysis and conclusions too. I think I’m just more open to considering what it says over The Economist, any Canadian news articles, etc. For TV analysis, I like a guy online nicknamed the Grim Reaper for his statistical analysis of show ratings and what it likely means for renewal / cancellation. I enjoy Ken Levine’s blog about his life as a sitcom writer, the Passive Guy’s curation of news in the publishing world, etc.
019. What would you like to experience this year? Write down three things.
A trip somewhere with Jacob and Andrea to stay at least a few days in a hotel. A public star party to share astronomy with others. And an evening out without masks for entertainment — movies, play, musical, something.
020. What would you ask your 80-year-old self?
I don’t believe in regrets in the normal fashion, so asking about it would be pointless. I doubt I’ll believe in them then anymore than I do now. It is also presumptuous to ask if they’re happy, like that would tell you something. I think I would ask them what makes them happy then, at age 80. Asking them about the past would spoil the surprise and journey. But what they enjoy at age 80? Something simple? That sounds about right.
021. The best 7-day diet that would work for you.
I don’t do diets, so that’s an easy answer. None of them. I don’t do crash-test health stuff, slow and steady is all that interests me.
Again, an interesting list of questions. Which one would challenge you the most to answer?
I’m asking myself seven questions a week, and here are this week’s questions.
008. Describe your comfort zone: The things you need in your life to feel safe.
I rearranged the question list last week to push this off a week, it seemed a bit too large for a tail-end question previously. I initially was thinking more about the second half of that question — the things I need to feel safe. In life, in a situation, in a relationship, etc. And it was an interesting set of thoughts. But it isn’t exactly that as a question, is it? It’s asking me about my “comfort zone”, and I don’t know that those two are the same. For me, comfort zone is indeed where I feel safe, but also where I feel unchallenged. Slightly outside that zone, there are areas where I would feel safe enough to take risks, so still “safe”, but not “in” the comfort zone. Areas that I might nudge myself further. So safety isn’t really the defining characteristic for me. Instead, it is more about expectations. My comfort zone is when I have a clearly defined role with clear expectations and the capacity to do what’s required of me.
Writing my blog is a perfect example. My blog is MY blog. I’m not writing for a website that has multiple authors, editors, staff, etc. It’s just me and my keyboard. My role is clear, and my expectations are set by me, so also relatively clear. And I can write. If I enlarge the analysis a bit, almost all “analytical, introverted” stuff is my comfort zone. All the blue energy, from the personality profile for “Cool Blue” introverts. It’s my happy place. If I’m stressed somewhere else, going to my analytical zone is what helps me cope. Which obviously means the opposite quadrant — intuitive extrovert or sunshine yellow — is my least comfortable zone.
Not surprisingly, my sister zones for warm yellow (intuitive introvert) or fiery red (analytical extrovert) are relatively comfortable at times … close family stuff is fine, or leading something where my role is clear. Social uncertainty is my enemy.
009. Pick a worry you have in your life right now. Now write down one or two ways to look at it with humor.
I’m always worried about not being my authentic self. That my “rules” for myself are not guiding my behaviour, that I might drift along and find myself separated from my core values after a while. Not being my true “me”. If I was to word it as humour, it would be something like an old Jewish man providing mentorship:
So, if you’re not you, who are you? (the idea that without trying, I have to always be me)
Is there anyone else who wants to be YOU? (the idea that no one is trying to take my job of being me)
010. How is the way you were raised helping you today?
I have spent a lot of time thinking about my life and any lessons learned. The answer for this one is relatively simple and derives from my dad. He preferred casual over formal, laughter over contemplating. And so do I, surprising I know. I spend a lot of time thinking, but I know that the highlights of my life are always the moments of laughter shared. Over Christmas, we were at the inlaws, and sitting around the table in a large group laughing innocently or simple wording choices, was a stress release of epic proportions. That is what is missing in my life, and I need to remember its importance.
011. How is the way you were raised holding you back today?
For my childhood, alcohol around me was a constant factor. Sometimes it led to laughter, sometimes it led to drama. And it made me socially insecure. I don’t feel comfortable in social situations that don’t have an element of control for me. With family mainly, but even some outward social stuff, I need an exit strategy to remain non-claustrophobic. That can be as simple as the fact that I drove, and can leave whenever I want. Other times it is seeing Andrea and Jacob having a good time, and if they are happy and safe, it calms me. But the “nurture” side of my personality pushed me to introversion and thinking over interaction, because it was safer. They weren’t horrible people, I wasn’t physically abused, they were functional drinkers for the most part, interspersed with drama. We are friends with a couple who are extreme extroverts, one by personality and one by conscious choice, and their kids are extreme extroverts. Over-the-top showman and showwoman. Always “on” when people are around and energized by it. While my personality might not have led me that way on a “nature” footing, my “nurture” sure didn’t either.
012. In what area(s) of your life are you more or less following the crowd, instead of listening to your own intuition?
I don’t know that I’ve ever really thought about that in a systemic fashion as my own intuition / analysis is pretty paramount to me. If I think of my goals, I would say I go my own way on self-org, learning, astronomy, computers, website, writing, photography, volunteering, and activities that interest me. For home and family, my approaches are pretty tame, nothing too exotic in how I approach things, but I don’t know that is about following the crowd, more than our approaches are more mainstream than faddish or cultish. On health and fitness, my knowledge level is low, so I tend to follow the advice of others in those area, albeit tamely to start. If I’m uncertain personally about something, I rarely jump in hard.
But I think the one area where I feel like I follow the crowd over charting my own path is finances. We have no major debts outside of our house and car payments, we have no terribly expensive tastes, we are not aggressive spenders or savers, etc. But I feel like we could have and can push more than we do. Even in planning for retirement, we need to meet with a financial planner soon, yet have been saying that for years. We do prudent safe stuff, not sure we shouldn’t have done more. Our pension plans are solid, so there’s little “risk” in our approach, but perhaps missed opportunity.
013. Write down a list of maximum seven thoughts that you frequently have that only bring you stress and unhappiness. Then rephrase these thoughts in an empowering way.
I’ve already done this in a different fashion when I created my list of “PolyWogg Rules”. They often started with my viewing something particular negatively, and hence a “rule” to help me see it differently.
There have been times in my life, as with everyone else, where I thought, “My job sucks”. Except I know, deep down, it isn’t really true. Certainly not objectively, it’s not like I’m digging ditches or picking cotton. And not subjectively either, as working for government is a really good fit for me personally and professionally. Sometimes I get bored, other times it is simply the balance of things I really enjoy to the stuff I don’t enjoy is off. Hence rule #16 on my current list — I don’t have to work any particular place, I get to do it. I’m starting a new job tomorrow, and I’m excited, but there was nothing wrong with my previous work. It was good, it was respectable, I was good at it and I take a professional approach to it. My bosses and staff were happy with me, I wasn’t stressed out of my gourd, and if a day wasn’t the most alluring thing I could be doing, that is probably more about my plans for retirement calling me than it is what’s going on today at work. I remind myself that I choose to do this for a lot of good reasons; if or when those reasons no longer hold, I can do something else. That is a very far cry from my job sucking.
Another example is rule 13. We all have conversations with various people every day. And sometimes those conversations go off the rails, the other person reacts badly to something you said even though you didn’t intend what they thought, and the natural instinct for most of us in those situations is to think, “WTF?”. Their reaction seems unreasonable, even unfair. Or maybe you accidentally stepped on someone’s toes (verbally, not physically) and you prompted a reaction. Other times, someone was having a bad day and you didn’t notice. There have been a few times in my life where I was not paying attention, or was flippant, and it hurt someone. Not mortally, but it hurt. And I have at times interpreted my bad behaviour as my being a jerk. I wasn’t, not really, but that was the impact.
Hence rule 13 — there is no such thing as a casual conversation. Every interaction of any type is a chance for connection. Maybe it’s being upbeat when dealing with a front-line worker in a restaurant, maybe it’s saying hello to someone as you open the door. Maybe it’s having a long conversation with someone over email, a person I’ve never even met but they open up to me. Each interaction, each connection is sacred in a way, and I try to remind myself that they may mean something to the other person even if it’s casual to me at the time. That doesn’t mean it becomes a millstone to engage with everyone, I don’t need to bond with the barista, but I also shouldn’t blow it off either. All of the connections deserve an appropriate level of respect.
014. Deep down, what do you know is your mission here on earth? How can you start walking towards it?
I don’t know that people really have “missions”. I don’t believe in fate in the larger sense, I don’t believe in single soul mates, I don’t believe in one thing people should do. In the literature, if you think of work/personal alignment, it often talks about an “employer value proposition”. In the pop psych world, it is the cliché that if you do what you love, you’ll never work a day in your life.
For me, partly as I’m a poly-lover of many projects, ideas, and areas of life, I think most people could have multiple “passions” in life. I don’t know that I would raise any of them to being better than another, a so-called mission in life.
One thing that does almost work for me is explaining stuff in plain language. I like taking complex ideas and stripping them down, turning them into a slightly different framework, and explaining them back to people. On HR in government, I have a framework I use that says, “Think of it THIS way as you prepare”, and it is a popular part of my website. People have read it, understood it, and are using it themselves. It works for them. I try to do the same in other areas, like astronomy. I feel it is something I do as a father more than I should, explaining my view of things to Jacob, while trying to leave room for his own take on things to define his approach in life.
Is explaining things a “mission”? That seems a bit too evangelical. I like doing it, I do it in online forums, but on a separate plane of existence, it’s just my way of helping people. Or on another plane, it’s just my way of stroking my ego when others “like” my explanation. “Mission” seems too one-dimensional to me.
Again, an interesting list of questions. Which one would challenge you the most to answer?
I’ve been wanting to sit down and write a regular blog about interesting questions to ask myself, and some people do it daily. But a daily blog is a bit of a grind when the real intent is learning, so I’m going to ask myself seven questions a week. Let’s see what I can learn about myself.
001. In what area of your life are you most successful? What lessons can you learn from that?
An interesting question right off the bat. It goes to the heart of who I am — not in what I am most successful at but in defining what success looks like. It isn’t a hard one for me, ever since I was 33/34 and emerging from my tadpole years of self-reflection, I’ve always known what success looks like to me. Being true to my self and, where possible, achieving my potential. It’s inward-focused, as most of my thoughts are at first glance. The lessons that derive from that are obvious — I need to continually reassess my behaviour, my motivations, my actions, to know if I am being “me”.
002. What words of advice would your 80-year-old self give to you now?
I think my advice would be a further reminder that inward-looking leaves you alone. The most important roles I play — son, husband, father — are all by their nature outward-looking. They require me to be present, not to simply analyse.
003. What has been the main cause(s) for feelings of unhappiness throughout your life?
I think that depends on which part of my life I reflect on. When I was growing up, starting my life, building a new life in Ottawa, I struggled with what I wanted others to do or be, or how I wanted them to treat me, not based on who they were but on who I wanted them to be. Family, friends, lovers. If I had to articulate it, as I am forcing myself to do now, I think the closest I can come is to say that I didn’t accept myself to be myself, so I didn’t know how to accept them to be themselves. I struggled with disappointment, not for people not living up to some high standard or anything, just more people not behaving the way I wanted/hoped they would.
004. What has been the main cause(s) for feelings of happiness throughout your life?
There’s no revelation or insight there, it is the same cause for most people. Making connections to others. Family, friends, my wife, my son. Yet running a slightly distant second is connecting simply with myself.
005. Make a chronological list of the moments that made who you are today when it comes to love and relationships.
Wow, now THAT’s a question.
Being rejected harshly in eighth grade and being alone through high school –> It helped me start to understand my nature;
Realizing that I wasn’t strong enough to end things with a woman –> I realized at the time that I was afraid of being alone;
Reverting to lesser versions of myself in stressful situations –> I wanted to fit in more than I wanted to be myself
Three “pre-dates” one summer in Victoria where their intentions were not clear to me until later … one wanted a friend and never thought of another explanation; one wanted more but I was only ready for friendship; and one wanted more but really just needed a male friend –> I realized that I am not very good at reading people if I’m potentially interested in them;
The start and end of a long-term relationship –> I was initially only interested in friendship, and it probably should have stayed there, as we weren’t very compatible long-term, but life intervenes with no regrets. But the break-up made me realize that I wasn’t as weak as I thought I was, and we remained friends. I also came to realize that I view love different than many people. I don’t do break-ups. Each person who has entered my heart still resides there. Not everything ended well, some things done to me are not laudatory. Yet they have no bearing on the feelings I had, I don’t recast the entire relationship in a different light, I don’t second-guess my intentions or what we had or didn’t have. I realized, for me, perception was reality. If reality wasn’t my perception, it doesn’t really change much. The feelings were real, and they reside in my heart still. I don’t bear any of them ill will in any way, with the warmth of an old friend, not romance. It of course runs way deeper than this simple bullet, but it helped me with some of my rules. Trusting others to be who they are, not who I want them to be, for example.
Saying goodbye to my father and helping my mother afterwards –> I realized that with change comes new boundaries that have to be drawn, and I changed my role in the family from peace-maker to merely member.
A four-year period of self-reflection, where I deconstructed both my own psyche and my friendships with a large number of women over the years. I was friends with them, yet I wasn’t interested in them romantically. I would look at various ones and try to figure out — what was it about them that interested me in being friends with them? Which parts of them did I like that I would want to see in someone else, if I was to date? What traits or characteristics did I find “attractive”? –> Again, I realized that not everyone looks at relationships the way I do. Or more accurately, I don’t look at them the way most people do. People assumed if I talked about what I liked about person X, it meant I wanted to be with them. I didn’t…I was considering people LIKE them, not them directly. Hard to explain, and at the time, I didn’t do a very good job of it when people asked what was on my mind.
On three occasions with different women, none of whom I was interested in, I interpreted their behaviour pretty accurately and at one point, people were joking that I was psychic. –> I realized that if I paid attention to people’s word choices, verbal inflections, and body language, I could often pull disparate bits of information from a variety of sources and come to a realization that didn’t seem linear. But only if I wasn’t personally involved or interested — if I was, that ability was completely blocked.
A year of implementing the prototype me –> I realized that what “works” for modern day relationships i.e., drama rituals, casual approaches, etc., didn’t work for me. I don’t do drama, and I don’t do casual. I also realized that if I was going to be true to me, I had to say what I felt when I felt it, not waiting for the right time or for someone else to catch up.
My first non-date and date with my now-wife –> I realized that all the analysis in the world cannot predict life intervening.
A boat ride date with my now wife –> I was enjoying a simple boat ride, the sun was setting and reflecting off her hair, and I suddenly realized that the new me, rational and self-aware, was in love with her.
An afternoon in the Bahamas playing board games –> My now-wife but then-gf and I were forced to stay indoors on one of our vacation days as it was raining out and not much to do, and we had a blast anyway just hanging out together.
My wedding day –> Of course, for obvious reasons.
Every day of her pregnancy and the first two weeks Jacob was in NICU –> A roller-coaster ride of epic proportions.
Saying goodbye to my mother and acting as executor of the will –> Again, my role in the family changed again, and I realized that as important as family is, I have another family — my wife and son — and they are more important than the rest. I can’t be who that family wants me to be or pushes me to be while being who I want to be with my new family. There were parts I had to let go.
006. What has life been trying to tell you over the past few years?
It would be facile to say simply that I’m getting old. More pointedly, it is that I have fewer years left than I have already spent, and if I want them to be something unique, I can’t simply drift along. Not majorly, not a mid-life crisis or anything, I am far too self-aware or arrogant to feel like any impending crisis of faith in myself is looming. It is more, I think, simply that I am looking ahead to retirement in five years, and while I enjoy my work generally, I don’t want to do it forever. I will hopefully retire when I am eligible, not stick around because I have nothing better to do. I have lots of ideas for my retirement, even though I strongly suspect that I haven’t yet found my passion to explore in retirement. Writing will continue, I hope, maybe just in the form of this website.
007. What is the role of most news media in shaping our beliefs for this world? Is it a message of love or one of fear they share? Reflect on that answer.
Lots of people find this question highly profound. From the Medium is the Message to the role of Fox News, deep troubling “issues of society” are at play. Or so I hear. To me, it is more like a triangle between society, religion and government. Society is always in constant flux, the cutting-edge of change, and I think news media is constantly trying to understand it, and share the info as soon as it can. Is it “shocking” more than “warm fuzzies”? Change often is. There are constant battles on the margins. Religion, by contrast, tends to offer a core stability, something that is NOT changing with the times. Deep roots to hold fast during storms that rage around a church, but not in the church. And thirdly, government, which tries to manage the worst aspects of change, to reduce the negative effects of chaos, to keep the screams down to a roar, where it can. News media doesn’t exist in isolation as a randomly charged ion…it interacts with the rest of society, bounces off it and government, identifies areas where all the forces in that environment are colliding. The latest news, so to speak, is the latest collision. Assigning a message of love or fear to its role is too anthropomorphic for my tastes.
An interesting list of questions. Which one would challenge you the most to answer?
I struggle to maintain a good perspective on my volunteer work in the last year. I count my HR guide as part of that, and that went well. But for astronomy, all of the star parties were “off” due to the pandemic and I did very little on that front, including transferring lead to someone else. I also failed big time on a large project for RASC, and that one haunts me a little still.
For RASC, overall, I tended to finish stuff off and back away. By March, all of my duties will be kaput.
I’ll still be involved with AstroPontiac, but not much else at that point. I just need to hunker down and focus on myself.
I did some good work at least for the National committee, and maybe that’s good enough for now.
