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LifeloggingI am Apollo Lemmon and this is my lifestream. I invite you to join me in my exploration of an integral life. I am focused on discovering what it means to live a life rooted in integral consciousness and I explore spirituality, art, community, technology, fitness and other aspects of a fully engaged life. I am now living in Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada.
I can always be reached at apollo@apollolemmon.com
We could all be more skillful at conducting effective change in our lives, and I’ll raise my own hand high if we’re going to count failures in change. Recently I’ve been learning from some fine examples of people working to change their lives and I’ll to pass along some of what has been valuable.
Self-experimentation is a very effective way to discover ways in which we can alter our lifestyles. Experimentation gives us objective data about how we are living and how well we are changing our lives. Without evidence, we can fool ourselves with wishful thinking or doubts about our progress, but we have the tools we need to confirm our practices are working and to shape them into more effective vehicles for change.
It is June 2010 and I am retiring the name that my blog has had for more than 7 years. I decided to unify my online identity and I want to bring my writing to my ApolloLemmon.com and Lifestreamer.ca domains. It feels a bit strange to be folding up that part of my life, but it’s also liberating.
Frozen Truth began as a phrase in a novel I played with writing when I was 17. I travelled from Upper Musquodoboit, Nova Scotia to Ottawa, Ontario with a group of people and during that trip the idea for an allegorical fantasy story came to me surprisingly fully formed. It was the strangest experience I had with my own fiction. I never finished getting the story out into words, but for years I reshaped it and worked to understand the characters and themes I had invented.
I carried the two words with after the story was left behind. My first blog had the name, and several early websites I created did as well. Frozen Truth, in several altered forms, became an internet handle that I still use for some sites and services. I’ve had a long run with Frozen Truth, and I’m sure it will linger here and there in my online life, but now it’s tucked inside a larger presense. You will find the archives of Frozen Truth among my lifestream entries here from today forward.
In March I began meditating for an hour each day. It has been hard to stick with the program, but the challenge has altered my meditation practice significantly.
Before these three months of sitting, I had a very sporadic practice that included at most a few hours of practice in any week. Sitting in meditation has finally become a comfortable and maintainable part of my days and I expect to maintain it going forward.
I read and re-read meditation books while I was doing the 90 Sits in 90 Days project, and I listened to great audio meditation instructions. The resource that was most illuminating for me was Shinzen Young‘s The Science of Enlightenment. Shinzen Young has a wonderfully direct and insightful way of explaining Buddhism and meditation, and I was lit up by the time I had finished listening to the audio program. The Science of Enlightenment is the clearest, most practical presentation of Buddhism and meditation that I have encountered and Shinzen Young is, without a doubt, one of the most skillful teachers of dharma we have.
More than 90 meditation sessions later, I feel that I am more focused and more committed than ever to lifelong meditation. Meditation fosters growth, focus and compassion, making us more capable human beings, and I am endlessly grateful to have started on the path.
Years ago I set a goal for myself that everything I own should fit into the trunk of a car. Soon that will finally be true. In June, one month from today, I will be moving back across Canada to Nova Scotia. I plan to go back with a lot less physical possessions than I left with, and that’s a very exciting prospect.
As I mentioned in my entry about book scanning, I will be leaving behind books and my book shelf. That’s not all I’ll be shedding before I move; my desk, dressers, storage shelving and many other things I brought with me to Ontario will be left behind and not replaced.
When we look objectively at the objects we have in our lives, it’s clear that for most of us there is a lot of stuff that doesn’t really add to our lives. Clutter, even when not obvious, gets in the way of living well by limiting what we can do. We need a larger home if we have a greater amount of things, moving expenses rise with the weight and volume of our belongings, and we can’t take advantage of many opportunities when stuff takes up our time. Having done away with any sliver of clutter blindness I once had, I’m feeling very positive about living a more minimalistic life.
In Letting Go of Attachment, from A to Zen, Lori Deschene points out the timeless Buddhist insight that attachment is the cause of suffering. She closes the article with, “Just know you have the power to choose from moment to moment how you experience things you enjoy: with a sense of ownership, anxiety, and fear, or with a sense of freedom, peace and love.” For me, part of living with that “sense of freedom, peace and love” is going to include cutting down my physical possessions to only that which can help me live better.
I’ve dived into digital and am doing away with book shelves; I’m a book worm and I am proudly giving up the printed page as quickly as I can. The future is liberating.
We hear a lot of talk about ebooks maturing and becoming mainstream, and I do hope we will see that soon. Sadly, publishers continue to drag their feet worse than the recording industry has and we will likely see tree and ink publishers go kicking and screaming into a better tomorrow. I decided to stop waiting, though, and have taken on the task of digitizing all of the books I have in my collection.
I began a serious purge of books last year when I moved from Halifax, Nova Scotia to Waterloo, Ontario. I had a lot of books and opted to sell and give away the majority of the books in my collection; I downloaded replacements for as many books as I could in digital formats. Even with a purge of many books, I moved with dozens of books that I care a great deal about and wouldn’t leave behind without a digital alternative.
In June I will be moving back to Nova Scotia and I have begun a scanning project. In late June, when I move, I will do so with no more than 5 physical books in my possession. Each other book and magazine will be scanned and passed along to someone else. I have already given to a book drive and will do the same again before I leave.
It’s a long process to digitize books; scanning each page with a cheap scanner can make each book an hours-long project. Even so, it’s better to act than to wait for publishers to catch up, so I’ve adopted a DIY attitude. I have scanned dozens of books and magazines that are not available in digital form during the past two months. I’m left with a collection of PDF files that will fit on a MicroSD card instead of filling shelves upon shelves.
As convenient as digital books are to read —I greatly prefer digital reading to paper reading—, the striking difference is in the clutter that will be in my living space. For the first time in my memory I will be without a book shelf, without a teetering stack of books and with every book I have loved in my pocket. That will feel great.
If you have the time, why not join me in being proactive in the move to digital books? A cheap scanner and a netbook would be all that is necessary to start the process. I’m very happy about the change so far.
This weekend I finally sat down to watch Zen Noir and I enjoyed it tremendously. In a nutshell, it’s an absurd mystery set in a Zen temple. The film pokes fun at Zen and film noir conventions and features an abnormal amount of oranges. It has a fun mix of slapstick, in-joke and just plain strange humour, but the cinematography is superbly beautiful; the juxtaposition enriches the film and makes it a remarkable experience.
On Saturday Neil Gaiman blogged about Prisoners of Gravity, one of my favourite TV shows when I was a kid and now. I had been rewatching the show for a couple months on YouTube, where you can find many of the episodes, and I was thrilled to see it brought to attention again. It surprises me how few people I know watched the best interview show about speculative fiction to ever grace the TV screen.
I grew up in a home rich in speculative fiction; my parents named me after a Battlestar Galactica character and the writer Isaac Asimov, afterall. It was Prisoners of Gravity, however, that brought the intellectual, thoughtful and stimulating dimensions of speculative fiction to the fore for me. The fascinating discussions about comics, science fiction, fantasy, horror, mysteries, films and video games brought to light the real substance behind the best of speculative fiction and was inspiring to a young spec. fic. geek.
What made the show great were two features: excellent guests and fascinating topics. Topics included sexism, feminism, medicine, nanotechnology, memory, artificial intelligence, evolution, ecology, racism, utopianism, immortality, sex, madness, genetuc engineering, censorship, politics, religion and AIDS while guests included Los Bros Hernandez, Robert J. Sawyer, Neil Gaiman, Charles de Lint, Tanya Huff, Denys Cowan, Will Eisner, Bob Kane, Frank Miller, Larry Niven, George R.R. Martin, Harlan Ellison, Charles Vess, Harlan Ellison, Spider and Jeanne Robinson, Jack Vance, Clive Barker, Jim Baen, Guy Gavriel Kay, Neil Peart, Danny Elfman, Harlan Ellison, Anne Rice, Alan Moore, Stan Lee, Jack Kirby, James Cameron and Gene Roddenberry.
Signal Loss, a fan-run Prisoners of Gravity site, has a listing of many episodes available to stream on YouTube.
For the past few weeks my friends Kelly and Jessica have been holding lifestreamer meetups in Second Life every Monday, Wednesday and Friday. The meetings have been a great way to interact with other lifestreamers, share ideas about the lifestreaming process and explore how lifestreaming can improve our lives.
Kelly and Jessica are two of only a handful of people I’ve gotten to know who are as enthusiastic about lifestreaming as I am and it has been a joy to learn their thoughts about technical aspects of ‘streaming and lifestreaming as a lifestyle. There’s no one I know who has done more experimenting with the lifestreaming lifestyle than those two.
2. We chose SL because logistically, it seemed less complicated than a multi-person video chat. I would prefer video but using SL actually lowers the barrier to entry–you don’t have to put your makeup on to meet, just roll out of bed and log on. That’s all most of us need–just a tiny push, a small group of people who will care if we don’t show up.
3. We are all working on various technical aspects of our lifestreams, and it is very helpful to talk to each other about CMSs, workflows, etc.
4. We are scattered around the globe and having SL for a meeting place means no travel or expensive phone bills of course :]
5. Keeping meeting minutes is easy with local chat.
6. Lastly, I really want to build a community of lifestreamers who feel like they know each other. SL is a great place to do that because of the embodied communication. You really feel like you’re in a space with other people, instead of looking at each other on a screen. Having avatars present together creates a feeling of spatial connectedness.
~Jessica Mullen, “Why hold lifestreamers’ meetings in Second Life?“
The lifestreaming meetings have gained attention from New World Notes, which published the article “Lifestreamers Forming Community in Second Life” about the group.
If you’re a lifestreamer and want to join in, why not meet us at Educators Coop 2 (109, 216, 24) at 9 am EST. In Second Life I can be found as Apollo Glass.
Low budget films are part of a counter-story to films like Avatar that loom with stacks of money for creation and promotion. I was thrilled when I was pointed toward a new short science fiction film that was created for $5,000 and looks fantastic. The Raven plays with classic sci fi themes in its brief duration and makes use of surprisingly advanced special effects. This is the sort of work that gives real hope that new media will soon become the most effective way to create entertainment and that science fiction is still an endlessly vital way to tell stories.
My love for podcasts is undiminished.
When I listen to great new ‘casts I share them here, filtering out the boring bits of the podosphere and leaving you with gems. You can find my previous recommendations all collected at Frozen Truth.
I recently discovered The Moth and was gripped by many of the podcasts I listened to. It features short storytelling sessions from fascinating speakers. Some of the notable guests of the larger project, of which the podcast is as aspect, have been Margaret Cho, Neil Gaiman, Ethan Hawke, Darryl “DMC” McDaniels, Moby, and Suzanne Vega. The series is a showcase of real life stories from people of all walks of life and succedes in bringing many perspecitves under the umbrella of intimate storytelling.
The stories range in length from approximately 5 to 17 minutes. Sometimes funny, occasionally sad, often poignant, we hope you will find the stories memorable and representative of many aspects of human experience. Because the stories are culled from many years worth of archives, the sound quality varies.
Tank Riot is a feast of a podcast. Each episode features a historic figure, pop culture landmark or topic that is explored with great enthusiasm and insight. A quick glace through the archives shows off just how varied the subjects can be; robber barons, Gilligan’s Island, Mother Teresa, Hanna-Barbera, Joe McCarthy, Post-Apocalypse Cinema, Walt Disney, Ayn Rand, Jim Henson, Mister Rogers, Tron, Devo, Henry Ford, Nikola Tesla, Douglas Adams, Philip K. Dick and Hugo Chávez were all fodder for this ‘cast. Some of the takes on important figures are surprising and shed light on overlooked histories; revealing Mother Teresa’s ugly side was especially audacious. Every episode is a thill, so be sure to subscribe.
I mentioned Kelly and Jessica’s The Popular Podcast in a previous post, but since then they have both created personal podcasts as part of their lifestreaming activities. Kelly and Jessica share their lives with great honesty and a clear desire to have their experiments bear fruit in their lives and the lives of those who look in through their lifestreams and podcasts. Recently Jessica has been focusing on lifestreaming for learning and design while Kelly has been exploring relationships and experiences.
I’m a lifestream designer, podcaster, & MFA candidate at UT Austin. This site is about using lifestreaming to learn about yourself and the world, so you can design the life you want. Follow my daily activities here.