<commit_before>I've just had a complete break from Slack and email for a week.  That was nice, although I was starting to get a bit jittery towards the end.  Ever since my knee operation last October I've been a mail/slack addict on my phone, checking for updates first thing in the morning, last thing at night, at every time of the waking day.  Great for staying up to date with everything, but not too healthy I feel.  I think a complete break for a week was the right thing to do.  I'm excited to be back in the saddle today and I hope, going forward, that I can keep my digital checks into a 9am-9pm bracket - we'll see :-)

While I was away from the digital fountain, I was reading "Doors of Perception" and "Heaven and Hell" by <NAME>, which was pretty discombobulating in his descriptions of taking mescalin, which match pretty closely to the descriptions of momentary zen awareness in the books I've read (or am re-reading) by <NAME> and <NAME>.  Despite being away from digital communication media for the week I did do some further work on a sample book chapter for a book that might now be called "Agile Methods for Open Source Projects", and even some coding on an alternative "inside-out" version of the TicTacToe technical test that FutureLearn gave me.  Those were quite relaxing activities, but the digital communication fast didn't stop me from worrying about "work", the sustainability of the AgileVentures charity and relationships with different members of the community.

Both <NAME> and <NAME> talk about surrendering to the moment, which I did a fair bit, actually doing some sketching on a short trip away, focusing on the momentary experiences day by day, the food I eat, the feeling of picking up objects, of looking into the distance.  And after Huxley's book, the folds in cloth and clothing, and flowers and surfaces.  I don't think I magically achieved any sartori, but I do feel closer to surrender.  The last 9 months I've been super-focused on pushing AgileVentures to the point where it could sustain myself and my family financially, and we've come some way along that path, but I think it's time to surrender.  The AgileVentures charity might one day be able to support paying staff, but not for a while, and I think pushing too hard towards that goal is going to be detrimental to both me and the community, or at least counter-productive in terms of moment to moment experience.

In order to sustain my family I'm going to need to take other paying work for a while.  If I'm lucky then the meeting I have with FutureLearn on Tuesday will generate a framework where I can get paid for some of my time, and still have some spare time for the charity, which can chug along until I've rebuilt our savings again.  If I'm really lucky over the course of months (or possibly years) I can help the FutureLearn folks take their project open source and get some real synergy with the AgileVentures community, but I shouldn't be too focused on any particular outcome.  The FutureLearn thing might not come off.  If it doesn't, I think that I'll need to sink a load of my time into CodeMentor and HackHands to see if that can generate enough income, and if it doesn't, then look for something else.

Thinking in terms of surrendering myself to my fate is helping me feel calmer about it all.  I also want to be listening more carefully to folks.  My insistent drive for efficiency and getting stuff done means that I am usually only half-concentrating when people are talking to me in meetings and scrums.  I'd like to see if I can change that; put the relationships with the other individuals in the community at higher value than getting things done.  Although I'm still terribly interested in the tweaks we can make that will make the community more sustainable.  The philosophy that I see across what I will currently call the Hagen/Tolle nexus is about detaching yourself from any outcome, and focusing on fully experiencing the current moment as much as possible.  It doesn't mean not seeking outcomes, but the more wrapped up you become in achieving a particular outcome the more you can end up pushing it away from you.  The universe flows around us and in us and through us and who knows what will crop up next.  I'm going to surrender to it and see where the flow takes me.


<commit_msg>tweaks<commit_after>---
title: I Surrender
date: Slack, Email, addiction, Aldous Huxley, Zen, tech tests, inside-out, sustainability, CodeMentor, HackHands, FutureLearn. listening, outcome, flow, moment
author: <NAME>
---

I've just had a complete break from Slack and email for a week.  That was nice, although I was starting to get a bit jittery towards the end.  Ever since my knee operation last October I've been a mail/slack addict on my phone, checking for updates first thing in the morning, last thing at night, at every time of the waking day.  Great for staying up to date with everything, but not too healthy I feel.  I think a complete break for a week was the right thing to do.  I'm excited to be back in the saddle today and I hope, going forward, that I can keep my digital checks into a 9am-9pm bracket - we'll see :-)

While I was away from the digital fountain, I was reading "Doors of Perception" and "Heaven and Hell" by Aldous Huxley, which was pretty discombobulating in his descriptions of taking mescalin, which match pretty closely to the descriptions of momentary Zen awareness in the books I've read (or am re-reading) by <NAME> and <NAME>.  Despite being away from digital communication media for the week I did do some further work on a sample book chapter for a book that might now be called "Agile Methods for Open Source Projects", and even some coding on an alternative "inside-out" version of the TicTacToe technical test that FutureLearn gave me.  Those were quite relaxing activities, but the digital communication fast didn't stop me from worrying about "work", the sustainability of the AgileVentures charity and relationships with different members of the community.

Both <NAME> and <NAME> talk about surrendering to the moment, which I did a fair bit, actually doing some sketching on a short trip away, focusing on the momentary experiences day by day, the food I eat, the feeling of picking up objects, of looking into the distance.  And after Huxley's book, the folds in cloth and clothing, and flowers and surfaces.  I don't think I magically achieved any sartori, but I do feel closer to surrender.  The last 9 months I've been super-focused on pushing AgileVentures to the point where it could sustain myself and my family financially, and we've come some way along that path, but I think it's time to surrender.  The AgileVentures charity might one day be able to support paying staff, but not for a while, and I think pushing too hard towards that goal is going to be detrimental to both me and the community, or at least counter-productive in terms of moment to moment experience.

In order to sustain my family I'm going to need to take other paying work for a while.  If I'm lucky then the meeting I have with FutureLearn on Tuesday will generate a framework where I can get paid for some of my time, and still have some spare time for the charity, which can chug along until I've rebuilt our savings again.  If I'm really lucky over the course of months (or possibly years) I can help the FutureLearn folks take their project open source and get some real synergy with the AgileVentures community, but I shouldn't be too focused on any particular outcome.  The FutureLearn thing might not come off.  If it doesn't, I think that I'll need to sink a load of my time into CodeMentor and HackHands to see if that can generate enough income, and if it doesn't, then look for something else.

Thinking in terms of surrendering myself to my fate is helping me feel calmer about it all.  I also want to be listening more carefully to folks.  My insistent drive for efficiency and getting stuff done means that I am usually only half-concentrating when people are talking to me in meetings and scrums.  I'd like to see if I can change that; put the relationships with the other individuals in the community at higher value than getting things done.  Although I'm still terribly interested in the tweaks we can make that will make the community more sustainable.  The philosophy that I see through what I will currently call the Hagen/Tolle nexus is about detaching yourself from any outcome, and focusing on fully experiencing the current moment as much as possible.  It doesn't mean not seeking outcomes, but the more wrapped up you become in achieving a particular outcome the more you can end up pushing it away from you.  The universe flows around us and in us and through us and who knows what will crop up next.  I'm going to surrender to it and see where the flow takes me.



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