What I’ve Learned So Far

The seventh item in Pope John XXIII’s daily decalogue:

7. Only for today, I will do at least one thing I do not like doing; and if my feelings are hurt, I will make sure that no one notices.

Life can be tough sometimes, and I find it especially tough when I come up against my own limitations and the fruits of my own bad judgment. Lately I’ve been struggling through a long writing project that I shouldn’t have taken on. At least, NOW I realize that I shouldn’t have taken it on; at the time, it seemed like just the thing to do. So although my feelings aren’t hurt about it, I am very much working in the vein of doing sometihng that I do not like doing.

David Halberstam said that being a professional means doing your job even on the days when you don’t feel like it. In general I agree. Sometimes, though, the feeling of “I don’t wanna” means that your intuition is trying to steer you away from something. The hard part is figuring out when this is happening, versus when you’re simply acting like a child.

The fact is, sometimes you have to muck out the stalls of your life. You have to do the taxes, or have the awkward conversation, or clean out the garage, or talk to someone you can’t stand. When these chores confront us, the best we can do is to dive right in, without a peep of complaint. If nothing else, the smile on your face will mystify anyone who catches you in the act: “How can you smile when you’re doing the taxes?” Tell ‘em you’re smiling because every line you figure out brings you one step closer to being done. If you have to smile while you’re talking to a boor, maybe you’ll be able to say something that will help them to be less boorish next time. But whatever the task, if it’s something you really must do — for good health, to stay out of jail, to keep good relations with those close to you — just go ahead. Don’t let yourself wear it heavily.

The minute I finish posting this, I’m launching into my Big Unwanted Writing Project. Because you know what? Every minute I work on it is a minute closer to being finished with it. And truth be told, once I get into the swing of writing it, I often find myself enjoying the process — at least a little.

My advice to you: the minute you finish reading this, do the thing you’ve been putting off because you don’t want to do it. Make the appointment to see the dentist. Clean out the litter box. Have The Big Talk with your teenager or your spouse. Whatever it is. And do it lightly.

Life has enough burdens without going through it weighted down by grief or contempt for the necessary things we don’t like to do. You can still dislike them, but do yourself the favor of shedding the weight of leaving them undone.

~

Previously in this series:

• “Without wishing to solve the problems of my life all at once.”
• “I will not claim to improve or to discipline anyone except myself.”
• “I will be happy in the certainty that I was created to be happy.”
• “I will adapt to circumstances.”
• “Good reading is necessary to the life of the soul.”
• “I will do one good deed …”

~

Fernand Point was talking about chefs, not creatives in general, when he said this:

Every morning the cuisinier must start again at zero, with nothing on the stove.
That is what real cuisine is all about.

Yet the moment I read this, I thought of the connection to writing and my own overtaxed agenda — or, as I ought to say, my own overtaxed mind.

The perfect writer would approach the empty page each day with a clear mind and a clear conscience, taking advantage of all that had been learned before, but without being burdened by the results of previous efforts. This is true whether those results were good (which otherwise might create pressure to top them), bad (which might discourage the writer), or mixed.

Creative individuals in command of the creative process improve their skills from day to day, neither forgetting their experience nor being burdened by it. Like a great chef, they take the ingredients that come to hand in season, then apply their acumen to transforming those ingredients into works of art or craft.

But when creators allow the tides of life to overwhelm them . . . fluent creation becomes impossible. Skill is blunted by anxiety. Technique hides under the counter while doubt rages.

It is far better then, for artists of all stripes to follow M. Point’s advice to cuisiniers: they should approach their empty kitchens again each morning, rubbing their hands together in anticipation for what they will cook up today.

(Thanks to 37signals for the quote from Point; kitchen photo by ddaarryynn.)

“[T]he true work of art works.
The poem is working out the poet’s fate.”

–Charles Simic

Their works aren’t regarded on a par with the giants of world literature, but Georges Simenon and Ian Fleming have done as well as any writers ever in delighting huge numbers of readers — and doing it with more than a grain of sophistication.

This long feature recounts (in slightly confusing form) a double-interview with Simenon and Fleming carried out when both men were still producing at their peak.

Simenon and Fleming discuss
The Thriller Business

[Fleming:] “There is no top limit to writing well. I try to write neatly, concisively, vividly, because I think that’s the way to write, I think that approach largely comes from my training as a fast-writing journalist under circumstances in which you damned well have to be neat, correct, concise and vivid. My journalistic training was far more valuable to me than all the English literature education I ever had.”

The piece is well worth reading if you want to write effectively and quickly. Fleming was highly productive, while Simenon was one of the most prolific authors of all time. In the piece, both of them describe their methods for composition, which did not include an abundance of time given to backwards glances. Rather, they both focused on pushing forward with their work, on keeping up their narrative momentum from day to day as they worked on their books. (Also of note: neither of them wrote throughout the year, but rather in concentrated bursts.)

Also of interest in this vein: Simenon’s Paris Review interview on “The Art of Fiction”.

Here’s another installment in my series on Pope John XXIII’s daily decalogue of self-direction:

6. Only for today, I will do one good deed and not tell anyone about it.

Doing the right thing is important to society: good deeds grease the wheels of our interconnected lives, and they help us fulfill our basic duty to help each other along.

But beyond that, when I do the right thing, I’m helping myself. Doing a private good deed means that I can focus on doing what’s right for the rightness of it, not because I’ll reap a particular reward. It helps me to focus on what others need, instead of only my selfish ends. In short, it reminds me to live for something beyond myself.

There is a form of Buddhist meditation called “loving-kindness meditation”; it focuses on wishing the best for an enemy. Many practitioners of this form of meditation — which ideally is carried out in secret — report that the benefits are profound. In some cases, the outward behavior of the enemy changes, but in many cases, the practitioners report that their own outlook — on the enemy, on strife, on life itself — is transformed.

Do some secret good for others, and you cannot help but be improved within yourself.

~

Previously in this series:

• “Without wishing to solve the problems of my life all at once.”
• “I will not claim to improve or to discipline anyone except myself.”
• “I will be happy in the certainty that I was created to be happy.”
• “I will adapt to circumstances.”
• “Good reading is necessary to the life of the soul.”

~

My pal Kris asked this question when I solicited reader requests:

I would like to know what you’ve managed to accomplish during your self-imposed quiet time. Work? Writing? Both?

(Kris is referring to this.)

The short answer is . . . yes and no.

Yes:

• I’ve been spending more time working at work, some of the fruits of which are here; if everything goes as planned, I’ll keep reshaping my work blog toward a book about the ways we work in the modern workplace. Stay tuned.
• I wrote two conference papers for the ASEH annual conference in Boise last month. Both papers were well-received, and in the end I figured out that I probably over-invested time and effort in them out of fear that they wouldn’t amount to much.
• Other projects have trundled along somewhat, although I’m not up to speed like I’d like to be.

No:

• Other projects have trundled along somewhat, although I’m not up to speed like I’d like to be.

That’s only sorta tongue-in-cheek. In fact, I’ve continued to wrestle with too many projects at one time, and in general have continued to struggle with an attention span that’s just too short for all the stimulus that I throw at it.

Two approaches would seem to be particularly apt for fixing this:

• 1. Lengthen the attention span.
• 2. Throw less stimulus at myself.

The good news on the first point is that neuroscience has determined that you can strengthen your willpower much like you can strengthen a muscle, by repeated exercise of it. I’m working on that. And as for the second point, I’m getting better (I think) about paring things down. Mainly it’s a case of

• 3. focusing on one thing and sticking with it until it’s done

– which can be tough when you have several bosses, many project, kids, a spouse, a house, and so on.

Two other things I’m working on that may be helping things:

• 4. Coaching myself to stay calm regardless. I’m heeding the advice that, for most of what we worry ourselves about, “It doesn’t matter.” Do what you can do, when you can do it. Be honest with yourself. But then don’t wig out about it.
• 5. Find the shortest finish-able bit of anything, whether it’s a longstanding project or a novel I’d like to write. Finish some atom that you can call your own.

So, that’s where I am for now. I have a couple of longer-term paid writing projects that have been weighing on me unnecessarily, and I haven’t made the progress I’d have liked on my Ph.D. so far this school year. But I’m happy, I’m grateful to say that I enjoy rude health, and I think — think — some of my habits are rounding into better, less crazy-making form.

Thanks for the question, Kris!

~

What else would you like to know? Please leave your reader request (or, y’know, a comment on what I just said) in the comments.

You remember the Hundred-Acre Wood, don’t you? It was the magic land where Christopher Robin had his adventures with Winnie-the-Pooh. I think we all need one — someplace where we can get out among the trees, the flowers, and the birds to breathe and think.

Lately I’ve been spending more time taking long walks in my neighborhood. My favorite walk goes for a mile or more along the Mo-Pac tracks, then makes a turn into a little walking park. The greenspace is hardly a hundred acres — more like two — and it’s built around two catchment ponds designed for flood control. Lots and lots of folks walk their dogs there, or climb the hill in the park to use the pedestrian bridge that lets you cross over Mo-Pac (both the railroad and the highway).

I make loop after loop through the park, departing from the sidewalk to follow the dog-run that goes along the park’s little creek. Depending on the season and how much rain there has been, I see all sorts of interesting flora and fauna. Yesterday it was tadpoles and butterflies, and all this spring it’s been wave after wave of wildflowers. A few weeks ago I got a long, close-up look at a juvenile cardinal in the tree over the creek.

More important is what these walks do for the environment inside my head. They allow me to ventilate my ideas, come to grips with the issues in my life, dream about alternative pasts, presents, and futures. They let me stretch my head — away from the Internet, away from my pressing duties. Sometimes, they show me that my duties aren’t quite so pressing as I’d like to think.

We all need this kind of therapy. No big deal, no big agenda — just a little time spent among the trees and birds.

Now if you’ll excuse me, I’m headed out for a walk.

(Image by Oscalito.)

Stealing blatantly from John Scalzi, I’m opening the floor to reader requests. Surely you’re just burning to know my opinion on something or other, right?

So, let ‘er rip: What would you like me to blog about?

(Photo by hashmil.)

Yesterday I rode my bike to work for the first time in probably a year or more. It’s only four miles, the route is easy, and I like to bicycle, but last July I tore a calf muscle, which put a serious crimp in my biking (and running) style.

But finally I got my act together, and I can report that the experience was remarkably therapeutic, and not just for my calves. Here’s a rundown of body parts affected by my day of bicycle commuting:

• Thighs and calves: like you’d expect. The first few minutes of each part of the commute really reminded me that I’m not in the condition I’d like to be in.
• Lungs: lots of fresh air.
• Rump: sore from all that sitting on the seat.
• Back: sore from the backpack full of my work clothes.
• Shoulders and arms: sore from 90 minutes (roughly — might be on the high side) of working the air pump to get the tires in good order before I set out in the morning.
• Hands and fingers: sore from wrestling a punctured inner tube off of a rim before the aforementioned air-pump activity, and then from manhandling the new tube and tire back on to the rim.
• Throat: sore from cursing at the aforementioned tube, tire, and rim.
• Facial muscles: got a good workout from all the grimacing.
• Patience: taxed from hunting throughout my garage for the fresh inner tube that I knew was sitting somewhere, pristine, never having been out of the box. (But hey, it took no longer than 10 minutes to find it.)
• Pride: reinforced by overcoming all these monumental obstacles to bike to work. The pioneer spirit lives on!

So apparently . . . bicycling is the perfect form of exercise.