The eternal quest for happiness and balance: 8 billion of us are on it. Here's my strategy.

October 5, 2016 Phaedra Loftis

All of us on this small, spinning sphere full of humans are seeking happiness in one way or another. It's an elusive things to find, and the distractions and noisy filler of the modern age don't do anything to help us hear the inner silence that helps us on the path.

I really do feel that this age is harder to feel calm and happy in than any other. There are a million distractions out there, and multitasking (which has been heavily lauded as a modern desirable trait) actually makes us feel more frenzied and less capable. Every time we get on social media or turn on our televisions, we can easily see what appears to be thousands of other people who have nailed this whole happiness thing, and it makes us feel worse. Or, conversely, we see thousands of people in dire straits, and feel guilty and helpless, which also makes us feel worse. So what do we do? Well, I'll share a few snippets of wisdom and pebbles I've picked up along the trail, through plenty of trial and error. I'm not saying I have all the answers, and of course YMMV, but maybe some insights will give some of you a bit of help along the way.

Phaedra's Guide to Finding Happiness and Maintaining Sanity in the Modern Age

RULE 1: Depression has a hard time hitting a moving target.

This is a multi-faceted thing rule, because I mean "moving" both physically and emotionally. Through my life I've had times of stillness and times of motion, and it's finally stuck with me. If I am physically active, I really do feel much happier and in control of my life. Turns out those scientists ain't lying. Endorphins are a real thing, and they are your friend.

The trick to getting this rule right for me has been forgiveness. I've tailored a workout plan to what I can realistically do, and I stick to it as well as I can, but I no longer give up when I fall off the bandwagon. I have two small children under the age of five, and I am alone with them a lot. So that means I can no longer do distance running, which is what I used to do. So I adapted: Now I work out in my garage. We got a rowing machine (which I am a hugely avid fan of) and some weights, and jump ropes. So as much as I can, I take a half hour or so to work out. This plan has been working great for me, and I've discovered something. No matter how alone I feel, or stressed, or how many of my favorite things my little angels have broken that morning, if I get out there and move around for a while as hard as I can, magic happens. I feel better afterward, EVERY time. Suddenly I feel powerful and strong and capable and in control. And things really ARE better.

Having a strict plan doesn't work for me. I get bored if I do the same thing every day. So I vary it in HIIT (High Intensity Interval Training) format. Usually I start of by rowing for 20 minutes, then for the next 10-20 minutes I do one minute intervals of the most intense work I can do. I'll sprint as fast as I can down my block, jump rope, do kettle bell swings, push-ups, pull-ups, weighted squats. The goal is that I do them as hard as I can. I also have a Tabata timer that I'll use some days as well (8 rounds of 20 seconds intense work, 10 seconds rest). And I love it. I find I'm working so hard during my exercise that I can't think about anything but the work. If worries or stresses start to creep in, that means I'm not doing it hard enough. I essentially get a meditative state going on, so my exercise ends up being beneficial mentally as well.

I went into a lot of detail there, but I get asked quite a bit what my exercise plan is. And that's the answer, but it's also what works for ME. I'm not trying to force it on anyone else, because I find that's when the plan breaks down. If I miss a day or two, I don't beat myself up about it. One of the keys to my success has been allowing myself to fall off the horse without judgement.

The other part of RULE 1 is staying active mentally as well. I always have a lot of things I'm doing, because if I'm bored, I get upset. I am creatively driven, and while I know in many ways it's a blessing, it's also a double-edged sword. Part of being a creative person is that I feel a NEED to make things. If I go too long without creating something, I am unhappy. That took me a while to identify, but now I know that's part of how I work. I need to make things, sometimes just to feel productive, sometimes to bleed poison, and sometimes just to show love. So that's what I do, and it fights off the blue devils. Stay busy, stay happy, is how I operate.

RULE 2: Stay In Your Lane

We humans are very social animals. We are tribe driven and socially adapted, particularly females. While the males would go out and hunt in silence, we stayed home with small children and talked. I think this was likely to teach our offspring the rudimentary elements of speech...and here we are, all talking it up. So while communication is a positive and essential part of our lives, it's easy to take it to excess. There's the keeping up with the Joneses element that happens, there's the gossip and judgement. It's very easy to fall into these traps. There's also the "Everyone seems happier than me" factor, which is a particularly nasty one. So what are we to do? Take it in moderation. Stay in your lane, focus on your life as much as possible, and try to be forgiving of those around us and their choices. It's much too easy these days to feel as though we are just part of an audience when we see the lives of others playing out online; remember, these are real people we care about. It's not just entertainment. Every single person is struggling with something, so step back a bit. If your friend is posting overmuch about politics, particularly the name calling kind, try to remind yourself that they aren't a caricature; maybe they're angry at other things in life and blowing off steam. Try to focus on your life rather than holding up yardsticks to those around you.

Rule 3: Stick to your expertise

Another factor of the modern age that is a happiness leech is how easy it is to get sucked into every possible tizzy that the internet latches onto. What do we do? Remember that usually, we aren't experts, and there's nothing really to do, so stay the heck out of it. How many times do we spin cycles and wring our hands over issues that happen to people who are far away and won't affect us, and then we argue about it. Remember Harambe? Remember how suddenly everyone on the planet was not only an expert parenting advice sage, but they were also completely informed on the behavior patterns and social mores of adult male gorillas? More so than the actual experts that were involved in that tough event? Well, I remember it. Made me want to throw up. So let's all just collectively decide to remember what we actually know about, and what we are expert on, and reserve our pointed criticism for what we know. Every other week the internet is deciding that every issue is a black and white, clearcut decision that should have been made with calm, perfect, clinical analysis. Guess what? Humans are still in charge of their imperfect lives, all around this planet, and as such, human foible and imperfection will be at play in nearly everything that happens. Life isn't an oscar-worthy movie just begging us to go point out logical continuity issues. Let's try remembering our own imperfection before grr facing everyone else all the time.

RULE 4: If it's out of your circle of control, it's out of your circle of concern

Everyone has things they can realistically affect in their lives. If you aren't happy with your haircut, you can change it. That's in your circle of control. If you don't like your stamina, you can move more. If you don't like the laws where you live, you can move to a place of likeminded people with laws that follow your belief system. That is in your circle of control, albeit with a bit more legwork. Those are valid things to think of, and plan about, and worry about to a certain extent. But what if you find yourself worrying about other things? If I find I'm working myself into a tizzy mentally over something, I ask myself, "Is this in my circle of control?" if it is, I try to come up with a realistic solution and goal, and move towards it. If it is within my circle of control, it's also within my circle of concern, because I can take action to remedy it. However, if it is NOT something that's within my circle of control, then I try to place it outside my circle of concern, because that's just useless worry. And life is too short for that. I can't control the fact that we are stuck with Trump and Hillary as our presidential candidates, I can't control the fact that an enormous earthquake could happen, I can't control the fact that I don't like the vulnerabilities of our powergrid....so, I try my best to put them out of my circle of concern. And actively reminding myself of the circles really does help me mentally shut off those voices.

RULE 5: If it's worth doing, it's worth overdoing.

Self explanatory, but I always feel better knowing I've done the best I possibly can in any given task.

RULE 6: Accomplish at least one thing every day. Don't let your day just happen to you.

I try, at the end of every day, to make sure that I've created or accomplished at least one thing. It varies on what it is. Some days it's just getting laundry done. Some days it's making a few batches of candles. It can be finishing a drawing, or working out. But I try to make sure that my day doesn't finish with me thinking, "What did I even do today?" That way I make sure I'm not heads down all day and letting my life pass me by.

RULE 7: Project the life you aim for

If I were to describe life in one word, it would be: setbacks. Because they are a constant. Every single person has them, and every single person seems to forget we all have them. I think at some point, most everyone feels as though they are the only person who is struggling. But we all are. The trick is to not allow the setbacks to define an experience. Learn, move on, adapt and grow. Put forth the best thing face you can. If you force yourself to smile, soon you'll find you actually do feel happier. So fake it till you make it.

RULE 8: Keep moving forward.

Make goals, beat them, make goals, if you get defeated....keep moving forward.

RULE 9: Surround yourself with people who have similar drive.

I'm not saying to stop associating with people if they don't want what you want. But really analyze why people are in your life, and if you have similar interests. Sometimes relationships aren't totally healthy, and sometimes people are there to be tourists. Measure who you give thought cycles and bandwidth to, and figure out if its healthy. Don't waste your time on dingleberries. I'd also say, make sure to do what truly makes you happy, and don't waste time on people who are going to judge you for it. There's well-natured ribbing, then there's active judgement. Ain't nobody got time for that.

RULE 10: Don't complain unless you're doing something to fix the problem.

If you aren't taking action to fix something, don't waste the time of those around you by complaining about it. Now I DO think you can complain if you're actually taking steps to fix the problem, because that's just venting steam. But someone who is still complaining about the same issue years after it arose, becomes a bore. If you hate your job, get a new one. If you can't stand your house, move. But don't make people listen to the choices you've decided to stick with. Besides, the longer you allow angry or sad thoughts to float around you, the harder it is to break away from them. Just keep moving forward.

A Man Said to the Universe

October 1, 2016 Phaedra Loftis

Today I'm doing something that I don't think I've done before, outside of required essays when I was in school: I'm going to write about a poem.

Admittedly I'm not largely into poetry. Some of it I find hard to get into, much of it I don't understand, and sometimes I feel as though it smacks too much of pretentiousness; all these are arguably problems with me, and not poems. But then every once in a while I find a poem that speaks to me on a very visceral level, and the scales fall from my eyes, and I see what all those poetry fans are going on about.

One of the very first poems that stuck with me is this one, by Stephen Crane. It was written in 1899, and was included in a volume called "War is Kind". Here it is:

A Man Said to the Universe BY STEPHEN CRANE

A man said to the universe:

“Sir, I exist!”

“However,” replied the universe,

“The fact has not created in me

A sense of obligation.”

And that's it. The whole thing. Five sweet lines that have resonated in my heart for a few decades now. I find myself recalling these words frequently, and in fact this poem has become, to me, sort of a mantra.

I'm sure there are plenty of analyses and wordy papers written about this poem. But I haven't read any of them. Honestly I don't want to hear someone else's interpretation and find out they've come to a different conclusion, because the interpretation I have and the sweet words that stay with me have come to mean so much in my life.

To me, this poem is about humility. It's about fighting off the hubris that comes so naturally to us, and reminding us to stay grounded. Just because we are here, does not mean anyone owes us a thing. It doesn't mean someone has to take an action on our behalf.

It means that we need to stand on our own feet, make our own lives, and that there is no universal promise that just because we feel important, others should automatically deem us so. Because just the fact that we exist and realize it, doesn't mean that anything or anyone else is automatically required to assign us esteem based on no merit.

In an age where there are more people than ever before sharing this sphere with us, and there is social (and traditional) media proclaiming at all times stories of petty offenses and disproportionate outcry, I think this message just continues to resonate deeper with me. It's as though a pebble got dropped in my subconscious, and these rings continue to expand in the pond of my heart.

Perhaps partially because we are more aware of our own tininess now than we ever have been in human history, we are rebelling against it. We know for a FACT that there are millions of stars out there, and millions of planets. We now know that there has been water on two other celestial bodies in our own solar system (Mars and Jupiter's moon Europa, which was just confirmed in the last week). At any given time, every single person in America can access millions of other voices online, informed or uninformed, as the case may frequently be. Never have we felt so insignificant. With the wane of religion as a universal status quo and to reinforce our importance as individuals in Western society, we are becoming ever more swept up in this existential maelstrom.

That's my theory, anyway, on modern trends of behavior that drive me nuts. And I find it a lot more easy to swallow than the alternative: that humans are devolving into childish, selfish, vapid idiots who jump on any bandwagon that gives them 10 second accolades, no matter their basis in logic or morality.

I prefer to think of our ridiculous modern behaviors as a rebellion at this abyss we feel we are lost in, and we are trying to grasp at straws of meaning on some level. In many ways it's the best time to be alive. As far as variety of experience, medical care, food, and safety are concerned, it's absolutely true. But as far as soul and sanity are concerned, I feel its one of the worst.

We are chasing our own tails in search of meaning, and identity. We are crucifying any meaning or identity that we can draw on from the past, partially I think to cut ourselves off from rules that we now prefer to find archaic, and partially to justify our own actions in the future in abandoning human rules that large parts of society have followed for millennia. In an era in which ancestral memory has been scientifically proven to be a DNA-based fact, I find it amazing how much certain quarters want to throw the baby out with the bath water. I think there's a lot of inner conflict on this, and it manifests itself in loud and illogical ways.

Hence people asking for others constantly to "not judge" the decisions of others (which in many ways I agree with), but out the other side of their mouth choosing to use mob-rule internet justice to ruin the livelihoods of people who make personal decisions of a type they don't agree with. In some cases I feel it's a positive idea initially, but then taken to a lynch-mob like response that entirely obliterates innocent people and their family....and then they flock on to the next thing. For an era that asks constantly for total acceptance for all decisions, there sure is a lack of proportional response when it comes to other, less popular, ideas.

And this all comes back to Stephen Crane's poem, for me. "Sir, I exist". Yes, good, identify yourself and define yourself and be strong. "However, the fact has not created in me, a sense of obligation." But that doesn't mean that everyone is required to think your existence is more valuable than anyone else's. A valuable mantra to remind ourselves of when we feel too large for our britches.

Dark Net, human frailty, and the race towards making ourselves obsolete

September 24, 2016 Phaedra Loftis

I just read a really great article at Vanity Fair. Much of their content is drivel (I'm not huge into what the robber barons of the age are wearing or eating, so I skip those parts) but I find that I'll unexpectedly run into very well-researched and thought provoking articles on issues that fascinate me. In this case, the article that excitedly jumped into my lap like an enthusiastic puppy is Welcome to the Dark Net, a Wilderness Where Invisible Wars are Fought and Hackers Roam Free.

In the very beginning of the article is this quote from the main interviewee (a hacker who is amusingly referred to as "Opsec"):

"He is a fast talker when he’s onto a subject. His mind seems to race most of the time. Currently he is designing an autonomous system for detecting network attacks and taking action in response. The system is based on machine learning and artificial intelligence. In a typical burst of words, he said, “But the automation itself might be hacked. Is the A.I. being gamed? Are you teaching the computer, or is it learning on its own? If it’s learning on its own, it can be gamed. If you are teaching it, then how clean is your data set? Are you pulling it off a network that has already been compromised? Because if I’m an attacker and I’m coming in against an A.I.-defended system, if I can get into the baseline and insert attacker traffic into the learning phase, then the computer begins to think that those things are normal and accepted. I’m teaching a robot that ‘It’s O.K.! I’m not really an attacker, even though I’m carrying an AK-47 and firing on the troops.’ And what happens when a machine becomes so smart it decides to betray you and switch sides?”

The entire article is well worth a read if you're into Information Security, threats, or learning about those parts of society that still operate like the Wild West. Spoiler alert: I am fascinated by all those areas, so I think this is one of the best articles I've read this year. The blurb above sucked me in hook line and sinker. It tickled the part of my brain that enjoys these future foe tangents, because I think what he's talking about directly addresses one of the factors that we seem to avoid allowing our collective consciousness to linger on too long.

If you're a regular follower of my blog, you may have surmised that I am basically governed by two large parts of my personality: misanthropic Luddite, and social technophile. Yes, that's conflicting. Yes, I'm aware of that, and I'm also comfortable with duality. It allows me to evaluate and contrast a lot of arguments in my head, and that's one of my favorite past-times. You never know what you'll find kicking around this old noggin.

The quote about AI sentinels, and AI sentience, articulated a very interesting modern problem. We love relinquishing power to technology, as a species. That's what originally set us apart from the animals. There is evidence of the use of tools from tens of thousands of years ago, and we haven't stopped with that innovation since. Clearly there was a large leap forward during the Industrial Revolution, and it's just continued on an upward trajectory ever since.

What's frightening is that we are quickly closing on the nexus of when we will be able to accurately control those tools, and when they make us obsolete. In a Genesis way, we have created AI in our image, and our child is rapidly moving towards establishing its own predestination. It's no secret that I actively fear AI overtaking us, because in a binary, numbers and logic way, it's not too hard to see that in the very near future machines with no God given conscience would be able to come up with cold logical reasons that we don't really need to be here. We take a lot of energy, we are messy, and we are frequently inconvenient and illogical. In a world of machines, it's easy to see how they would write us out of the equation. Is that an alarmist idea? Well, sure. But if you want to be prepared for the future, you need to look at all possibilities....even the dark and uncomfortable ones. In a system meant to adapt and learn to evolve efficiencies, we are most likely to be the least efficient part of the system. Already ghostst in the machines have evolved to make their own logical leaps in different lab tests. When we relinquish too much power, what's the end game?

In the Vanity Fair article, I particularly enjoyed the CURRENT projection that he comes up with. I've done quite a bit of speculation in my head about what's going to happen in the 5-10 year range, but I enjoyed having the real-time mirror held up in this illustration. In the last several years there have been numerous, very terrifying security breaches in the shadow world. The average person probably doesn't think about them too much, because the data breaches are so large and so frequent, and there's also that good old "This is scary on a huge level so I better not think about it" response. Usually we just see it as a news blip, and maybe a prompt to change passwords. But what has happened is there have been several large breaches on a level that could really be devastating to a lot of American citizenry. Between the health industry breaches, the OPM breaches of the government on its most secretive workers with all their most sensitive data, and the frequent hacks of financial institutions....and those are just the ones we've actually heard about...someone is amassing a lot of data for a lot of nefarious reasons. It's not a big leap to assume that there is some sort of dossier being compiled on most people, and that data isn't being kept to safeguard us. (Since I am already at tinfoil hat level here, I'll throw out my favorite advice: always have a kit, always have a plan, and always be ready).

The AI drones that Opsec speaks of as being the sentinels of the systems, and their fluid moral codes (if interfered with at the proper time in the learning process) are exactly the sort of moral gray area in our AI work force that I'm talking about. When we are creating our own little bot armies of white knights, but they themselves have no sense of light or dark, that sword can easily and nefariously be turned against us by the wrong people. And they are. Stuxnet is one of my all time favorite intelligence stories, and that was assumably executed by white knights. But now what are the black knights doing? And when the soldiers that we send out into the battlefield are no longer flesh and blood with some sort of assumed shared moral code...but instead hackable bots...that changes the battlefield entirely.

As the world of AI and computers has become more global, the control of who owns the top players has quickly changed. And as we here in the US focus more and more on the media game of misdirection (insert your pet #HASHTAGSOCIALFRENZYCAUSE), we get more muddled and forget what we are doing. It's easy to form our own echo chambers and ignore the world at our doorstep, and there's solace in pretending the wolves are at the door. The more we shout at each other about manufactured crises inside our warm homes, the more we can try to block the howling of the wolves outside. But when a bit of silence falls in our lives, when we are alone falling asleep, when our batteries on our devices have died or there's not a game or reality show flickering to put us into soma relief, we know deep down that someone somewhere is amassing to take things from us. As much as we pretend like it, most of the world is not like us. Most of the world has vastly different moral codes than what moves us in the US, and there are plenty who want what we have. Particularly as weather patterns and things like water availability affect other players in the big scary human survival game, like disease and food. No matter how accepting we want to be to each other (which I support) there are going to be nation states that will not EVER accept us. And while they may or may not be able to get warheads or fighter jets or thousands of soldiers....they likely CAN get access to the internet. And they'll fight that way. Look at the cyber caliphate army, ISIS hacking division. The battlefield continues to evolve. And we need to be aware of that.

So, what is there to do? After all, we are all just players in this game at the most basic level, when it gets down to it. I think one of the biggest things is to be aware. Look the wolves in the eye and make sure you're aware of their existence. Can you do anything about financial monoliths or energy companies getting hacked? Most likely, no. But you CAN be a good steward of your own information. You can make sure to know how to handle yourself in an emergency. You CAN make a plan to make sure loved ones know where to go if there's a power blackout or the cell networks go down. And finally, try to take time to unplug on your own sometimes, and remember that we don't need technology to handle all things in life. People don't need to get a hold of your every minute. Step away and remember how to be a full human, and get used to that idea. Appreciate what we have and the experiences that we are getting, because we are lucky to be here.

Remember the Fallen

May 27, 2016 Phaedra Loftis

Here we are, on our way into Memorial Day weekend. I don't know how it is where you are, but here in Maryland it's bright, sunny, hot, humid, and exactly as Memorial Day Weekend should be (we had nearly a month of record setting rain, so I'm enjoying the change!)

My garden is flourishing, the roses are blooming, my children are loving the cheap pool I got at Target, and it's summertime at its best. I hope you're going into your holiday weekend feeling the same way.

I always see a few struggles people have with Memorial Day, regarding how to honor the fallen, and how others perceive the day (for example, many people thank Veterans for their service on Memorial Day, and that frustrates some people). So I'll go ahead and let you know how I approach the day.

If you've known me less than 5 minutes, you might not realize that I am a huge patriot. I think America is incredible, though not perfect, and is a place to be proud of. And yes, I feel that way even in the midst of this reality show of an election cycle.

We have enormous amounts of freedom here, the country itself is beautiful and unmatched geographically by any other land. Mountains, oceans, deserts, forests, some of the most fertile farming land in the world...we have it all. There are skeletons in our history, but there is no nation that doesn't have that. Because we are all run by humans, and as such, imperfect.

Since I believe in the inherent imperfections of humanity, and I also believe that we have inherent violent natures due to being the top predators on the planet (there are individual exceptions, yes, but I'm speaking of the entire human race), I feel that it is important to defend ourselves. I believe the best way to have peace is to carry a big stick, because no matter how much some of us want peace in our hearts, someone else is ready to take it away. Is that right? No. But I'm also pragmatic.

Since I believe all those things, it makes sense that I am a strong supporter of the military. I have worked in the midst of the defense and intelligence communities for a decade now, and as such, I am mostly surrounded by military men and women, and have the honor of calling many of them my friends (and in one very special case, my husband). This is an inherent part of me now. To have those who choose to live lives of peace, having no part of the military touch them, is a modern luxury due mostly to the fact that America has been so good at defending itself. Even for those who don't realize how many Vandals are at the gates, there is a very strong phalanx of men and women keeping them safe (whether physically, or, in this strange new age, digitally). Because trust me: the wolves ARE howling at the door. It's just a blessing to many that they don't realize how many blood-eyed zombies would take everything we have, if given a chance. Is that hyperbolic? Not as much as you might think.

Hand in hand with those who ARE defending, are those who HAVE. Behind the men and women who serve now, are the long shadows of those who have gone before, and who have paid the price. Now, I don't get offended when people thank veterans for their service on memorial day. I see why it happens, and I think any military appreciation is a good thing. But I do understand why some people get offended. Because by thanking those who stand at the wall, perhaps they feel we aren't recognizing those who have fallen before it, whose blood and bones went into the mortar of the safety we feel today.

The sacrifices of those who have given their lives in service to this country are easy to remember when we are watching something like Band of Brothers, or Saving Private Ryan. But I think it is harder to recognize, for some, that we are losing those around us, still. The controversial wars of the last 15 years haven't been without their toll on those who have been fighting them. I've lost friends, and so have most of the people I know or work with. The sacrifices of those in previous generations still resonate today, as the sacrifices of today will (hopefully) resonate with the generations of tomorrow. Particularly as, in the future, the stories of today lose their tinge of politics and spin, and become what they really are: the stories of those who signed up to confront any danger to this country, no matter what it was, and then went to confront it. We honor the faces that aren't with us at our parties this weekend. We honor those who gave all to make this country, we honor those who defended it, we honor those who are both the sung, and the unsung, heroes. To all who gave their family, their youth, their everything. That's why we CAN celebrate this weekend, and that's why we will. Till Valhalla, fallen warriors. You are not forgotten, and we carry you with us.

Movie Review: Captain America: Civil War

May 19, 2016 Phaedra Loftis

It's been busy around the Shieldmaiden Homestead lately (as always, really), but I was happy to get the chance to have a few hours to myself on Mother's Day. Our babysitter came over, and I got to indulge in seeing a chick flick: Captain America: Civil War. Chick flick for this house, anyway. I suspect most readers here are of the same mind.

I'm not really going to go into the intricacies of the plot, although of course there are spoilers below so stop reading if you don't want to find out what happens. Mostly I'm going to just sort of rant about my reaction to the movie. There are probably literally hundreds of thousands of reviews that tell what the plot is, and I'm so fashionably late to the party here that I assume most people who care about seeing the movie (and might be reading this) have already.

It's no secret that I am, and have been for a long time, a comic book fan. By extension, I'm a fan of comic book movies that aren't awful (fortunately this DOES fall in that category). I've been as avid as anyone else out there about the last decade's worth of comic book movies. All the Iron Mans, the Avengers, the Captain Americas, all of them...but I find myself ending up feeling a bit of ennui about the Avengers story line right about now. Hear me out.

I'll give you the secret recipe that keeps me coming back for more: 1 part action sequences with fantastic stuff, 1 part eye candy, 2 parts quippy remarks and smart one-liner jabs while competent superheroes handle stressful circumstances, 3 parts camaraderie and smooth teamwork to save the day/world. So the ration is 1:1:2:3. I felt like this movie came in more 3:1:1:-1. That is not the proper recipe for this viewer.

I'll break it down for you. I knew going into this I'd be Team Cap, because I'm an idealist for many of the mores of past times, and astute student of history. I also have a deep-seated mistrust of international government organizations that are prone to extreme corruption and mishandling of other people's interests and assets (I'm looking at you, UN), and do not believe that bureaucracies do much good beyond increasing the donut count at a meeting. I think Tony Stark is great too, and understand he's got issues, but I watched the movie and turns out, yep I am DEFINITELY Team Cap. Fortunately eventually....so was Tony. So boom, still got it. But that whole "Civil War" thing was going to be ass-burn for me, and I knew it going in...because it's no fun to watch two of your coolest friends go through a divorce. Let alone when they set all their kids against each other. And that's how it felt.

But beyond that aspect of discomfort, here's what really bugged me about the movie. I'm sick of the newest Avengers plot-line, which seems to be "Insert character whose sister-aunt-dentist got killed by superheroes. Make them all mealy-mouthed about it for the rest of the movie. REPEAT." Look, I know there's been collateral damage in the other Avengers movies. But, there had to be, to save EVERYONE on the planet. I don't think I'd lose a ton of sleep over that choice. Save one person, or everyone else. Everyone wins, everytime. There's too much hand-wringing and soul-searching, not enough teamwork and taking care of business. And that's not what I go to these movies for. Parts of it reminded me of the senate scenes in the Star Wars prequels....do I have to tell you how much that hurt me? A lot. It hurt me a LOT. I thought we'd learned that legalese deliberation via committee does not a good movie make. I hope they relearn the lesson. It seems as though the Batman habit of making every superhero conflicted (which works fantastically for that series, btw) has leached into my marvel universe. And I do not like that.

At least by the end, everyone else realized what I already know: All the corrupt governments in the world are not made equal, and shouldn't be given de facto reign to deliberate and take forever to make immediate decisions when humanity is on the line. (What, that's not what you took away? You're just not jaded enough.) I DID like the ensemble cast, although I sort of wish they just would have knocked off Spiderman. Antman was amazing, and the entire airport fight reminded me of why I love these stories in the first place. But I hope we can stop with the soul searching, and get on with the excitement from here on out. No wonder Thor and Loki sat out on it.

One of my hobbies: Plants that eat bugs.

May 18, 2016 Phaedra Loftis

I've always been fascinated by carnivorous plants. Venus flytraps, sundews, bladderworts, pitcher plants. All of them. The strange behavioral cross between plant and animal, the mysterious fragility, and tons of attitude. I've always thought of it as a pretty amazing thing that these plants exist, I suppose in the same vein as being impressed by jellyfish (they have no brain...but they hunt? what?)

It was only in the last few years that I actually started acquiring them. Right now I have two sundews, and 5 venus flytraps. I'm probably about to order a few more sundews, because they're a. gorgeous and b. truly amazing at totally decimating fruit flies in the summer months. Seriously, right now the larger of the sundews has about 20 fruit flies it's eating (thanks to a bad batch of bananas that doubled as a cruise liner for the pests).

particularly villainous sundew, in the colors of house lannister. Not a coincidence, I'm sure.

Sundews manufacture a very sticky dew that entices insects with its sweet smell and taste. They fly in, land for a snack, and are stuck like fly paper. The leaves of the sundew curl around the insect, and bam. Food chain.

Venus flytraps are the most well-known carnivorous plants, with their dramatic jaws and quick closing motion when hapless prey climbs inside. They're really interesting to watch, and all the venus flytraps in existence herald originally from the swamps of Eastern North Carolina.

The plants can be tricky to keep alive, being very picky about the quality of their water and soil, but I've had good luck with them fortunately. In keeping with my usual fascination with slightly macabre, predatorial themes, I'm looking forward to getting the newest additions soon.

Trying some new things lately: Viking candles

May 12, 2016 Phaedra Loftis

If you follow me on social media at all, you've seen lately that I launched a new line of Viking-inspired candles. I've been making them for several months now, but finally decided it was time to take it public.

It's not truly "Viking" if there's not a weapon of some sort somewhere.

The official line title is Shieldmaiden Candleworks, so feel free to check it out. I'll post the links to both stores at the end of this article. What I really want to talk about is why I've decided to go in this direction.

I spend quite a bit of time wrangling wee ones, and when I'm not doing that, I'm generally doing something on the computer (most of the time something creative, sometimes not). I enjoy and love both of those facets of my day, but I think there's an essential part of my process that was missing something.

That missing ingredient was creating something with my hands. I enjoy painting and drawing, and other creation of that sort; but doing something with our hands that doesn't require such cerebral contemplation is, I think, a pretty important part of being human that it's increasingly easy to miss out on. So I started making candles, and I'm really loving it.

The more automated our lives get, the harder it is to reconnect with the "maker" facets of our personalities that, until the industrial revolution, were a universal part of the human experience. That need to create and work has stayed dormant within, in my opinion, and I wonder if some of the listlessness many of us feel in the modern age is a result of missing out on that hands-on, physical experience.

I'm not saying doing things on computers isn't important. I'm not saying that people are living their lives wrong, or admonishing. But again, there's so much clutter and chatter to get lost in during the modern age, I think creating physical objects is something that we may not realize we aren't doing, but we can tell we're missing something.

I certainly know it's true of me. Having a craft that requires me to think, that shows me physical accomplishment, that I can share with others, and that I can replicate....well, it's definitely made a part of me that was dormant feel alive. And I'm happy to have the chance to share that with others.

If you are interested in seeing the fruits of my labor, go to:

www.shieldmaidencreative.com/shop or www.etsy.com/shop/shieldmaidencandles

Eye in the Sky: A movie review (sort of, though there are a FEW spoilers), but more of a reflection

April 16, 2016 Phaedra Loftis

This last weekend my husband and I celebrated our anniversary. As part of the celebration, we went on a date to see the movie "Eye in the Sky" with Helen Mirren (my liege and Queen), Alan Rickman (I think this was likely his last movie, though I don't know for sure), and Barkhad Abdi, who played the main pirate in Captain Phillips (and was phenomenal at it, as he was here, playing an agent for the British in Kenya).

There she is. Strong and beautiful as the day is long.

I'll give a very brief, and hopefully mostly spoiler free, synopsis. In this movie Helen Mirren plays a UK Colonel who is acting as liaison working in the US with the Air Force. The US has the drones the Brits need to surveil (and possibly, if things happen to escalate, strike) targets in a terror plot occurring in Kenya.

Amazingly, things do escalate, and it quickly moves from surveillance to the necessary strike question. All of it is thrown off when a little girl sets up her bread selling stand right within the kill zone (who has a very progressive father who wants her to learn to read and study science right in the middle of a rebel zone. So of course our sympathies are hedged on their side, because they are just trying to live their lives and all that jazz....though the father is also working for the terrorists, so we have the old "just trying to make ends meet but overall a decent fellow" conundrum thrown in for good measure).

Rickman, looking at an idiot politician with disgust and incredulousness, no doubt

Now I'm not going to go into all the nitty gritty details here, but this movie did a good job of bringing some messy questions and morality in warfare topics out in the open. Surprisingly, they did it in an awfully pragmatic way, devoid of most of the pie-in-the-sky hand-wringing and "we are only here due to a lack of hugs from the Western Powers" implications they usually beat us over the head with. Although, there was that moment where the drone driver was freaking out over a bunch of questions that I didn't find entirely plausible. But besides that pansy, it was very well handled. Even the young female co-pilot was pretty down to earth.

In one brief movie (just over an hour and a half long), they manage to address in a coherent and fairly conceivable narrative: Dealing with bureaucrats trying to make political gains, relations between allies (the US came off as very professional and calculated, which I supported), supporting those who support us, acceptable collateral damage, mission drift, and the people who are doing everything they can to realistically get a nasty job done vs. the people who don't really care about that. The best quote from the whole thing is by Alan Rickman's character, Lt. General Frank Benson: "Never tell a soldier that he does not know the cost of war."

Check it out of you want something interesting, about warfare (drone warfare in particular), and not morally black and white. In other words, some of my favorite things

Wildfire

March 24, 2016 Phaedra Loftis

Today I'm going to write about something a bit more serious, happening in my home state of Kansas. There is a large wildfire burning in southern Kansas and Oklahoma, southeast of Wichita. They've had to evacuate a few towns, like Medicine Lodge and Sun City, both of which I've been to. The ash and smoke are obscuring the sky and falling all the way up in my hometown of Lawrence, which is a few hundred miles away. It's truly an apocalyptic vision, and all the more disturbing when the livelihoods that have been wrecked are taken into account.

The fortunate thing is that the area is mostly pastureland, and not densely populated. But it's wreaking havoc nonetheless, having destroyed so far over 400,000 acres of land. The fire isn't anywhere near being contained, and continues to balloon outwards, devouring more communities in its wake. It's very early in the season for a wildfire, but there has been a drought that has been going on for years now. Unfortunately this is most likely a harbinger of more woe to come this summer in the region; don't forget that naturally Kansas is mostly beautiful rolling prairie (ie, grass), and a burn off is hard to slow down.

The people of Kansas are by nature stalwart and down to earth, accustomed to hardship and hard work. I love the people of my homestate. Overwhelmingly friendly, kindly interested in others, interesting and diverse. But my heart aches for the circumstances they are up against with this record-setting fire, and the likely scenario of more to come.

One of my strong memories when I was a child was of visiting my grandparents in Harper, Kansas. My parents and brother and sister and I all went on a short day excursion to visit Sun City. It was very small, with a one block long downtown; clearly a farming community. I remember two businesses downtown. The first was a closed down pool hall; it wasn't particularly unique at first glance, but we went and looked in the windows, and to our surprise we saw all the pool tables were still there, with pool cues and balls on them as though left in mid-game. But the entire scene was covered in a quarter of an inch of dust! It was such a surreal image, that never left. I wish I had my camera then! After we took in that sight, we went to a saloon across the street, where the proprietor was a kind old farmer. We lingered a bit and he talked to my parents; he gave us kids some water. That was my only trip to Sun City, but it's never left me.

The sun-baked southern portion of Kansas has always been beautiful to me. Cottonwood trees, rattlesnakes, wheat fields, the omnipresent winds, and huge blue skies. It's no wonder that Wichita was so instrumental in the beginning years of flight (so many companies were there: Cessna, Lockheed, Boeing, it really was the center of the industry); the best views of the sky are in Kansas, how could someone who lived there not want to explore them? 40,000 foot stormfronts can be seen for hours before they hit. I love that area, and always will.

I hope they get the rain they need, and are blessed for harvest season. And I'll be keeping an eye on this wildfire, praying for those caught in the face of its devouring maw, and offering assistance in anyway I can. Keep the firemen in your prayers too, fighting field fires is a terrifying job; extremely dangerous as well. The only solace I can take is maybe after this burnoff, the ash will help make the fields fertile for a great harvest next year.

Spring is here!

March 20, 2016 Phaedra Loftis

It's official: Spring is finally here! Even though in our neck of the woods it has decided to show up with 40 degree weather and a bunch of rain. Despite the inclement weather, I decided to do a bit of portraiture to welcome the warmer days ahead.

Lately we've been planting for the growing season, and I've been drawing a bit more. So that's been keeping me both busy, and outside (two of my favorite states).

One of my favorite creative forms is portraiture, however. Especially children, since they are so unpredictable and impulsive. You never know what you'll get when photographing little mites, but you're guaranteed to get something you didn't expect.

Flexibility and good humor are the main ingredients to successful portraits with really small children.

All in all, children are just a wellspring of happiness and impulse, and those are two of the best thing I can think of.

JRR Tolkien, fantasy, and a simpler life as inspiration

February 23, 2016 Phaedra Loftis

I am undoubtedly not the first person to think of Middle Earth as a place of refuge from modern hustle and bustle, technology, and the minutiae of modern life. In fact, JRR Tolkien himself viewed it that way; the Lord of the Rings trilogy was in many ways written as a response to the industrialization of the Oxfordshire surroundings he loved so much. This harkening for more simplistic times is something that resonates with many of us in the modern age.

Sometimes when I'm heads down in coding, I've spent too much time gaming, or I'm just exhausted from the most recent infuriating 24 hour news cycle tempest in a teapot, I find myself reading the Sagas of the Vikings, Lord of the Rings, or losing myself in the rich and incredible illustrations of amazing fantasy artists like Alan Lee (who also was responsible for much of the aesthetic of the movies) or Brian Froud. Unsurprisingly, my places of solace have also trickled irretrievably into my own artwork and hobbies.

Nazgul by Lee. Look at that beautiful gestural line work in graphite! The Nazgul speak deeply to the reptilian fear of the unkown and threats in the night.

This need for simpler societal rules, a commune with nature, and a black and white moral code draws me back again and again, as does the reflection in the artwork associated with this lore of elegance, muted colors, and well-executed simplicity. My personal theory is that this resonates so deeply because much of our ancestral history ("our" in this case being humanity) had much more in common with that sort of environment than the modern, too quickly fabricated one. There's a part of every human that seeks out the wind in the trees, a crackling fire, and staring at the stars and wondering about our origins. Rising with the sun, modeling our lives on harvest seasons, and protecting our loved ones from the darkness beyond our doorsteps. I think this essential calm reflection is ever harder to find (and one reason I am very much enjoying living in the country again).

Warmth, firelight and solace: Another Alan Lee Illustration

Do you find yourself detaching from the modern world? What environments do you seek, and what stories resonate in your heart? I'd love to know.

Femmebot Fatale: Humanity, Technology, and the Future

February 10, 2016 Phaedra Loftis

Last night we watched Ex Machina, an excellent movie about a femme fatale robot in the very near future. It's beautifully shot, in austere locations that really did a great job building an atmosphere of isolation, modernity, and the relationship of man to nature.

The film is a visual feast for the eyes, with a palette of greys, charcoals, warm golden honeys, and cold, unblinking indigos. It's exceptionally executed, with perfect visuals and acting. The female robot, Ava, is a hybrid between a coquettish female, all doe-eyed innocence and wide-eyed wonder, under a veneer of subtle, newly discovered sexuality. This is cross-bred with clearly visible technology and futuristic calculation; her body almost looks more like human-shaped alien armor than human physiology. And this is the contrast that sets up the plot.

Ava ends up being a femme fatale, ultimately using her female wiles to manipulate a hapless male and achieve her own goals. This theme is one that has been popular in science fiction since the very beginning of the genre; one of the first movies I ever saw (and technically one of the first movies in general, really), Fritz Lang's Metropolis, centered around this very same idea. It's one I find myself drawn back to as engaging; clearly in the human psyche there is a part that is very cognizant of the power a gorgeous female can have over a male, and the weakness this can cause in what is normally seen as a rational being (and clearly, disaster usually ensues).

What's interesting in this genre as of late, and sci-fi movies in general, is the warnings that are getting louder and more frequent about AI and its ultimate potential dominance over humanity. Honestly, I see these warnings as having a lot of truth to them, and it's something I worry about myself. In our quest to placate ourselves with banality and ease, we easily hand over responsibilities and mental tasks to machines. Increasingly it becomes harder to tell the difference between them and us, and I can see the horizon line getting closer. Most of the programming community either openly acknowledges it, or addresses it by looking askance at the issue (most likely because it's a huge topic that is pretty scary, since it looks as though it's a future we are barreling towards). When humanity is confronted with a potential scenario they are afraid of, but don't know how to address, that topic bubbles to the surface as "fiction", and art. And thus we see this genre expanding. Transcendence, Ex Machina, Her, Oblivion....these movies all speak to these fears. In the 1950s and 60s science fiction movies overwhelmingly dealt with fears of nuclear war. Our fears now are AI.

The femme fatale-as-machine genre gets directly to the heart of the issue (no pun intended) in the most emotional of ways. In all things, humans are least rational when it comes to love. The entire world has been upended by star-crossed lovers of human nature, throughout history. Recently General Petraeus had his entire career waylaid by a love affair, and had to step down from being head of the CIA after one of the most successful martial careers since Vietnam. Bill Clinton and Monica Lewinsky, Marilyn Monroe and JFK....there's no shortage of stories where love or lust have been the undoing of powerful men. When you combine the acknowledgement of the power of women and the fear of what effects that can have, with the cold calculations and limitless intelligence of AI....well, throw in the fact that AI females wouldn't actually need humanity for love, breeding, or have much of a reason to keep us around....it makes for pretty good story.

Aesthetically the hybridization of the female form with post-Industrial age love of machinery, and you have some potential for amazing creativity. It's a match made for the sensibilities of the modern age. Soft feminine beauty, cold machinery, fear of ultimate power and intelligence: a heady mixture that our media just can't leave alone. I expect as we grow closer to the nexus of AI and human power in the future, the genre of femme fatale robots will just continue to thrive. And I'll be watching it all with my hands over my eyes, and a sardonic grin on my face.

Outerspace, Innerspace

February 2, 2016 Phaedra Loftis

The last few weeks I've had Outer Space on my mind quite a bit. Space travel and the space program have always been a big inspiration to me, both as a person, and creatively speaking as well. It doesn't take a rocket scientist to figure out that I'm a scifi nerd, either (Ha! There's one for the cheap seats). I've always felt incredibly lucky to have been born in the century where the entirety of humanity got to experience Outer Space for the first time in a tangible way.

My first favorite movie was 2001: A Space Odyssey. I remember an astronaut speaking to my class in 3rd grade, and I got to hold a shuttle tile. Growing up in Kansas, with some of the best views of the skies in the country, I have clear memories of staring through a telescope with my dad in a field, finding craters on the moon. Seeing the smudges of the stars of Pleiades, resolving themselves into distinct and separate shapes.

Even now, I'm lucky enough to live within a smattering of miles of Wallops Flight Facility, and have finally gotten to see with my own eyes, rockets launching into space. It's an incredible age that we live in. The last few weeks have been big ones for me in terms of inspiration. David Bowie died, and though of course I didn't know him as a person, it hit me harder than I would have realized a few weeks ago. "Space Oddity" has been a favorite of mine since the first time I heard it. The helplessness, the sense of mission, accepting responsibility for inevitability, and the ultimate sacrifice of self in lonely dire straits. What a picture to have from just a few lyrics.

Just a few days ago on January 28 was the 30th anniversary of the Challenger explosion, yesterday was the 13 year anniversary of the space shuttle Columbia disintegrating over Texas. Apollo 1 had the fire on January 27, 1967 that killed 3 crew members.

There have been a lot of sacrifices for all the advances we've made, and many of them within a few days of one another. Lots of scientific and technical strides exist entirely due to the Space Programs and what they've uncovered, but for the rest of us, they've allowed us to dream and see and breathe and just exist in a world that touches the rest of the universe. We know we are part of a galaxy, and not an island. And that's an amazing thing.

I'll leave you with one of my favorite photos, of Anna Lee Fisher, one of the first female American Astronauts. She was also the first mother in space.

Beware the Ides of January

January 25, 2016 Phaedra Loftis

It seemed as though winter just wasn't going to hit this year, but I had a vague memory of feeling that way in previous Decembers, so I thought it was best to hold out as best I could. Sure enough, this week, a blizzard struck, and I had as much winter as I could bear for a couple days. I find myself enjoying the inspiration of living in a place with all 4 seasons, distinct and separate. Much of my inspiration comes from the landscape and nature in the Maryland countryside near where I live, no matter what the season. The color palettes are some of the most distinctive effects.

The cool silvers and deep grays of the winter, with the bright vermillion sprinkle of the occasional holly tree. The slate gray of the angry bay, austere and lonely. And finally, the monochromatic splendor of the ice and snow covered moonscape I have before me right now. It all goes into the hopper on creative sourcing, and I welcome it.

I enjoy the silence of the cold winter nights, with the crystal clear sky showcasing the stars in their most magnificent brilliance. Solitude and isolation are two of the situations in which I find myself most inspired to create, and as such I try to capture those moments when I can in my personal scrapbook, to be called up at a later date to recenter me.

Without further ado, a picture of the surface of the moon (or, Hoth, or, my yard after a blizzard. Whatever works.)

Thanks for stopping by,

Welcome to Shieldmaiden!

January 20, 2016 Phaedra Loftis

Hello and welcome to Shieldmaiden Creative! I'm excited to share the new website with everyone, and look forward to making more posts in the future. I'll be sharing new design and photo projects I'm working on, as well as the smaller side projects I do on my own time to brush up on different skills. In the next few days I'll be posting up a few of my recent pet projects; please check back!