1. I am working on the 1st official rendition of my project to post to the group. 2. I will have it posted tomorrow night. 3. Time restrictions, but I finally got over the mental hurtle I haven't been able to clear since October and have something started I feel good about, so there's less time needed now to complete.

Wow this is quite a profound insight Jon. I had not realized the distinction until I read this, and I resonated immediately with it. Rewards seem almost like a bad habit if they're devoid of the intentionality of celebration for achieving something specific, as opposed to justifying something enjoyable because X has been hard.

This speaks deeply to me Reko. I recognize an affirmation to sit in the unknown, resisting the temptation to imagine an overly detailed path ahead, but also the challenge to take a step forward into it regardless. A common theme on the past few episodes of my philosophy podcast has been the age old distinction between 'being' and 'becoming". For centuries it was argued that being precedes becoming; that we have a transcendent cosmic identity and that our task is to discover it through living this life of immenance. But thinkers started challenging that in the last hundred years, suggesting a more eastern perspective that consciousness is less like a tree; a symbol of stability with clearly defined purpose, and more like a rhizome; a complex and resilient web of interconnected pathways of flow and purpose in every direction . A quote: "We shouldn’t engage in living life with the expectation that there’s some way we should be living that we’re going to arrive at some day. See, because again, the world is fundamentally a world in motion, constantly emerging or becoming or in flux. But this picture of the world that [Gilles Deleuze] is painting goes far beyond just metaphysics. This entire worldview is, in many ways, a call to action, a gauntlet being thrown down challenging anyone who hears it to rip off the shackles of a rigid identity that’s been given to you by somebody else and to engage in a process of becoming, to allow your identity to emerge immanently from inside of you rather than accepting it as a gift from someone else. But it goes beyond just you. His work is a call to embrace seeing the entire world in terms of difference rather than identity. Because if the world is fundamentally immanent and in motion and rhizomatic, then to embrace that immanence and motion and the enormous fractal complexity and inter-connectedness of the rhizome is to affirm existence, to Deleuze, rather than negate existence, which would be to hide behind identities and hierarchical systems of thought that just oversimplify things. To affirm existence is to embrace difference, to seek out different people, different cultures, different ideas, different answers to the question “How might a person live?” which could include different jobs, different relationships, different lifestyles, to spend your time engaging in different activities. Maybe this year it’s the trumpet; maybe next year it’s archery." - Steven West, ep. #129

This is great clarity on what the group is, and also what it isn't. When I was meeting with a councilor at the end of last winter, there were several sessions that I left feeling jaded. I would create a story that I wasn't getting my money's worth because I hadn't left with a breakthrough. But deep within I knew it was because I went in unclear about what I was looking for. When asked directly my answers were vague and usually focused on what I didn't want. And I still feel that way, especially this time of year.