Well, life is going to get pretty exciting now…

Well, as if my life wasn’t exciting enough already, I received notice a few weeks ago of getting laid-off from my job. My last day of work is next Friday, Dec. 19th.

I went really down over this for about 8 hours, thinking that I had really blown it. I rebounded very quickly however, my thought process going something like this. First of all, it’s not necessarily personal – there are other factors, which I won’t get into here. Secondly, if I’m honest with myself, this is what I wanted. The job wasn’t really a good fit for me, and it wasn’t fully in integrity for me to be there, as I didn’t feel I was earning my salary. And thirdly, as crazy as this may sound, I wasn’t making enough money to make it worth my while to be spending 40 hours in an office, plus the commute. Although I was well-paid as technical writers go (and writers don’t make nearly as much as programmers), we were still barely getting ahead, partly as Trellis House is still growing and we’re subsidizing it heavily. My goal is to pay off our debts in 18 months or less, and then make a career for myself in writing, coaching and speaking. For this to happen, we really need income at least twice our expenses. Still, the job had served its purpose. I had taken it at a time of desperate financial circumstances, when frankly I wasn’t sure that I was still employable at all, and it had been a true godsend. And now it has run its course.

But beyond this, I feel myself in such an amazing space of growth and manifestation right now, I can’t imagine that something better won’t show up. I’m getting some pretty good hits already on other contract opportunities, and also getting cold calls from Google hits on my professional website. Which reminds me, if you have any leads on software project management or technical writing, please send them to me and earn my undying gratitude .

What about hypomania?

Am I just being hypomanic here? Should I just take a job – any job – and accept “reality”?

About the “hypomania”, the boundary between the clinical condition / diagnosis, and the pure and simple enjoyment of life and being in the flow of one’s creative process, is fuzzy.  It requires discernment and I will, no doubt, get better at it.  Only time will tell is all this is real.  But regardless, this is the longest “hypomanic” period I have ever had (3 months and counting) and also there is no coffee connection. With my new diet I am doing only one or two coffees per week, which, to paraphrase Lieutenant Data of the Starship Enterprise, is “operating within acceptable parameters”.

And as far as the job goes… well, I haven’t turned down any job offers yet .

And the juice feast?

The juice feast is going extremely well. I am now on the modified version. I drink about 3 quarts of green smoothies per day, consisting primarily of juiced carrots and apples, blended with avocado, lettuce and spinach; and one solid meal a day, usually containing animal protein and grains or beans. I am still experimenting with the composition, but it’s working. I am very happy 80% of the time and I have also had many sublime moments. Plus my weight is holding, which is important as I can’t afford to lose much weight. My goal is to eventually shift towards an 80-90% raw foods diet. This is where all my research is pointing.  I continue to study and experiment as this cannot be done overnight, given my weight constraints and also the need to keep my focus, due to the problems inherent in highly expansive diets that I mention in my previous post.

And this is where it gets really wild…

Where is gets wild is that just as I’m out of a job and looking for work, I come across Steve Pavlina’s polyphasic sleep experiment, and decide to give it a try. Polyphasic sleep, also called Uberman sleep, involves taking naps of 20-30 minutes spaced out at 4 hour intervals throughout the day and night – and that’s all, for a total of about 3 hours sleep per day. I know it sounds crazy, but Steve Pavlina was on it for 4 1/2 blissful months, felt better and more sharp than ever before, and only went off it when, as best I understand it, he started feeling lonely and a bit disconnected from the human race from all the time on his hands when no-one else was awake. His decision to return to normal sleep was done with great ambivalence and he still speaks very wistfully of his experience. Others report similar experiences, but many others tried it and failed. The reason for failure appears to be that it takes a bit over a week to adjust, and the first 3-4 days are hell. You have to clear a whole week from any intellectual tasks, as you’ll be a zombie for that time. After that, supposedly, it starts to get really good and goes up from there.

Well, it so happens I got laid-off and so I have almost three weeks over the Christmas holidays – how fortuitous . Of course, intellectual discipline and stick-to-it-iveness is not my forte, as many of you know. A whole week of following any kind of program at all is really stretching it for me – let alone a program where I’ve given up on sleep. But I figure if I commit myself publicly to it, and intend that if I don’t “get it” after a week I’ll give it up in good conscience, I may have a chance with it.

Have I totally lost my mind?

Well, that may be – it has happened before : -). But it still seems like an experiment worth doing. Who was it that said “It’s better to aim for the stars and reach the trees than to aim for the trees and land in the mud.” In a similar vein, one of my favorite people, Barbara Sher in her wonderful book “Wishcraft”, says that if you don’t go for an objective that truly inspires you, and settle for something less instead, you will probably lack the necessary motivation and will fail even in the smaller objective.

The potential benefits of polyphasic sleep for someone in my condition blow my mind. For one, it might bring a solution to the financial issues mentioned above – imagine being able to increase my working hours to 12 hours per day, while still adding 50% to my leisure and social time? And then, as a person committed to a life of continuous learning, and assuming I can transition out of computer work altogether eventually, what would I do with 16-18 hours a day of dedicated study and research, and the possibility of conducting experiments in consciousness all day and all night long ? Not to mention the fact that I have hardly touched my banjo for 10 years, and I am not happy about that. The garage is waiting for me (I don’t think my housemates would respond kindly to banjo playing in the middle of the night .

And now, “the rubber hits the road”

In the last few days, I have felt like I was coming to the end of a cycle with my writing. It’s been quite a ride, but at this point I honestly don’t know that I have much more to say. I have declared my intention, stated my goals, and thrown out everything that I have ever been taught, or believed to be true, about the pathways to success (ie. hard work and and sacrifice, vs. inspiration and joy). I have declared my intention to earn a large amount of money in a relatively short time, and I feel confident saying this, as I know that this in support of a higher good and not just for my ego gratification (which has not always been the case, by the way).

Of course I will keep you posted on my juice feast and employment situation – and probably gather my polyphasic sleep logs and share them in a single post – but I am not sure I can really add to Steve Pavlina’s detailed exploration of the topic.

For the rest, this is where “the rubber hits the road”. The key aspect for me, is to believe that I will win either way and regardless of outcome. Winning is a self-constructed experience. If I am delusional, so be it. I will take that chance.

Here is something I wrote in my last autobiography, almost 10 years ago:

“I feel myself now on the threshold of a kind of happiness and peace and personal integration (relationship to myself and to my own creative process, perhaps even a masculine-feminine integration) that I have been seeking all my life. I also feel something of a return to “myself”, that crazy and irrational confidence that I can do anything I want and be successful, which ultimately, for better or for worse, in reality or in fantasy, in ecstasy or in despair, is the thing for which I live. “A life of love, laughter, music, travel, adventure, humor, contact and excitement… a life of the Spirit”. Nothing fundamentally has changed in me since I wrote that, only maturity.”

This paragraph speaks to the core of my being. Isn’t it interesting how our fundamental character and motivation stays fixed over time, despite whatever experiences and development we go through?

Are you still with me?

If you have read through to the end of this article, I thank you. Trust me when I say, that I could not do it without your attention, love and support, and the support of the people around me, including my wonderful wife, our children, and our housemates Jason, Joanna and Wade. All you guys, and my loyal readers, rock.