emotion – The PolyBlog

I spent a bit of time thinking about the green sections, the “emotion” side for intuitive introverts, after I had finished the draft model. It wasn’t really “singing” to me. I reworked it below to focus on three streams — one for family, one for the intellectual outward-facing side (?) of emotion leading to spiritualism, and one that is more about community. I don’t know if it is quite the right model, but it works better for me than the previous one.

One of my big items in the last year was connecting more with Jacob, and I wish it had gone better. I had hoped that Jacob would be interested in “big” event style evenings where we did a project or something together, maybe crafts, something. But that wasn’t really grabbing the cub’s attention. He did like helping me build some shelving, but that was the exception rather than the rule. Instead, we’ve settled into a bit of a father/son routine going out for dinner once a week while Mom does other stuff, often to some place like Lone Star. My favorite memory of the past year was sitting at the bar with him, having fajitas, and he was watching a hockey game or something while listening to the music, and he was bobbing his head, just rocking out to the tunes while we sat there. We chat about his day, eat some good food, and I let him play on his (or my) tablet when he’s done while we’re waiting for bills and things. Not the active event I was hoping for, but it’s something. He has also upped his abilities for playing video games, so I got him started on the Playstation One games that I have, of which he really likes the racing games. I’m trying to get him more into “first person” adventures like Crash Bandicoot as that will open up some other things we can do together too, but we’re both having fun just playing. I’m also constantly amazed by his abilities to integrate information from multiple sources, pull it back out of his head, and drop it into conversations at the right moment. Not to mention hearing my own limited teachings about sports parroted back to me, often right on cue. My son, the analytical sponge.

The other item was for supporting Andrea while she finished her Masters in Education, and I think we’re both glad she’s done (her obviously more so than me!). But we’ve also drifted somewhat in the last year too. Somewhat because of the M.Ed., some because I’ve been doing more on social media for reviewing TV episodes etc. and we haven’t been watching anything together. I think we’ll probably have to make more effort to schedule things like game nights, maybe even (gasp) go for lunch together once in awhile since we work in the same building. It’s nice to have her back in the car for the morning commutes. But I’ve also drifted in the last year too much on food preparation, she’s been doing almost all of it. I get the groceries, and make sandwiches / chop veggies for lunches, but dinner has been mostly her. Mainly because she gets home an hour before I do and by the time I’ve driven home at night, I’d like to sit and decompress for a bit before diving into anything. And the fact that it’s easy to let her do it, particularly with all the new Epicure recipes in the last few months. We’ve been going for NAC outings, but I think we may have to start scheduling more outings just the two of us, maybe even once a month. Hedonistic self-indulgence, I know!

Andrea and Jacob are also my lifeline for connectedness. With isolation from friends and extended family, as I discussed in the yellow goals post, they’re the only proof that I’m not a budding sociopath. While I can’t “use” them to compensate for my social deficits, they do help me pull my head out of my ass often enough to be sociable. But, like most dominant blues, I find green energy both rewarding / supportive AND draining / exhausting. I like going home to Peterborough, visiting with the in-laws etc., but Christmas was exhausting. I just could not keep up the pace of social interaction, and it wasn’t that high, but I frequently had to absent myself to the bedroom to just disconnect and read/relax. Which is partly why I took this week off too. I needed a week just mostly to myself to get my blue energies going again. Honestly, I probably need a month, but I’ll have to settle for a week for now. The sense of ennui that has enveloped me for the last three or four months was starting to look like low-grade depression, and I have struggled to get my focus back.

Category	TIER ONE (Basic Needs)	TIER TWO (Developmental Needs)	TIER THREE (Self-Fulfillment Needs)
Green (Connections, emotion, family)	Family Awareness, tolerance Environment	Affection, extended family Morality, lack of prejudice Acceptance, affiliation, connectedness	Love, intimacy Spiritualism Community, respect by others

But it has slowly returned. And while I held off on my “slogan” for the red and yellow until the end of the post, the overall message that keeps ringing in my ears for green is a very simple “stick to the knitting” metaphor. Jacob and Andrea are my core priorities, really my only priorities. So I’m probably somewhere between Tier One and Tier Two overall, not fully reaching Tier Three on all aspects yet.

We’re hoping to take a trip sometime this summer, hopefully out West or North, but we’ll have to see how Jacob’s schedule works out for that (he might have some procedures done that would limit walking for a spell, so we might be in need of a staycation). So, I can’t quite commit to that one.

For community, I still maintain the website for Astropontiac and sit on the board, but there’s not much to do for that. I’ve also taken on web support for the school council for the cub’s school since Andrea does the newsletter. It isn’t much work, a few updates here and there in WordPress, but it’s something. I mentioned earlier (in the yellow post) that I killed my big “awareness” campaign for last year, and not planning one for this year either. Web stuff is a good role for a blue introvert, and I can even do all of it by email, no in-person interactions required! Plus it is time-shiftable, mostly. I had thought about doing something too around “charity hacks” or fund-raising via a polar plunge, but those are not likely to ever happen, and I’m taking them off the list.

So, three priorities again:

Reconnecting with Andrea;
Boys nights out with Jacob; and,
Website support for BGPS and Astropontiac.

Not getting too ambitious and overtaxing myself. Core priorities, nothing more, nothing less. Sticking to the knitting.

For my green goals, I’ve talked about most of them already, or at least the two big ones. I did also vague book about one of the smaller ones, and I’ve now explained in greater detail (Men who like meat!). But the ongoing stuff for green has been relatively absent. I’ve already noted in a previous blog entry that “green” areas are really hard to plan for in some ways, and not conducive to goal setting, tracking, “managing” in normal sense. Case in point — I have no green “bucket list” items to add this year. Let’s start putting the other pieces together though.

GREEN PRIORITIES (Emotion, family, friends)

My two big goals on this for the year are “Jacob and Me” and “Random Acts of Romance (RaR)”, and I have already blogged about both of them.

For the on-going, day to day commitments, I have three general headings:

Family — with the death of my Mom two years ago, the family lost some of its natural cohesion, leaving any remaining interactions up to us to spark. My brother Mike lives here in town, and we tend to see each other mostly for outings for dinner, so will have to organize those. Sharon and Don live in Peterborough, and I’ll make an effort to continue to engage them both by phone and when I’m in town;
Friends — I’ve blogged today about my plans to re-kickstart “wing nights” with the guys, and we’ll do another corn roast this summer. I’m looking forward to dinner with a friend from out of town next week, but other than that, we’ll have to make more of a concerted effort to reach out, create “events” to allow get togethers in smaller settings that aren’t giant free-for-alls (which I don’t normally enjoy);
Community — I want to develop a more systemic approach to charitable giving, although I’m not totally sure what it looks like yet. I will also continue to be involved in the AstroPontiac astronomy project that my friend Stephan is leading. But I think my big contribution will be my social campaign for November. I’m not ready to share details about it yet, but it’s going to take a fair amount of time and energy.

That’s it, that’s all for the green…On to the yellow!