CASUAL EFFORT

April 29th, 2020

What is casual doesn’t require effort, and what requires effort is rarely casual.  To combine the two is to create a small virtuous cycle in your life.  When some effortful task becomes an automatic habit, it becomes a casual occurrence.  A casual effort isn’t a contradiction, it’s a subsumption.  As a habit becomes ingrained in our behavior, the ease and casualness that it takes on overrides or eats the sense of effort that we felt in the beginning. 

Soon enough, what seems like an immense amount of will power to other people is all but automatic and easy for the person who has put in the time.

Tinkered Thinking started off as a casual effort, and it could do this because a great deal of writing in other forms had preceded it.  The task of writing for ten or twenty minutes a day was not much to ask.  In fact, the freedom from editing, and a requirement to move on made this task even easier. 

It remains a casual effort.  As more people tune in, and these daily words fall under that gaze of more eyes and find their way into more ears, the process of generating these words remains the same.  This is likely due to the process having a long and entrenched set of methods.  The curious and wandering force at the helm of this imagination has been at the task long enough to be strong enough not to relinquish it.  Or so it currently seems.

Any large accomplishment, be it writing half a million words or leaning how to code is a composite of thousands of tiny efforts.  We can chop up a task into smaller and smaller pieces and inevitably the morsel of task gets to such a small size that to get it done would be a fairly casual and easy affair. 

This is the key to long term accomplishments.  Don’t expect yourself to write the novel in the next seven days.  Just write one page every day.  If that’s too much, write a paragraph everyday.  If that’s too much just write a sentence everyday.  The point is, find the amount that is pretty easy and then simply focus on making that a habit.  Once the behavior is automatic, it will be fairly easy to increase the amount.  It’ll most likely happen without much effort or thought.

For example, Tinkered Thinking is usually composed late at night.  Which is actually an awful time.  But it’s a compromise.  If the work for Tinkered Thinking is done in the morning, there’s a fairly high chance that the writing will expands and take over the entire day as a single episode splits and multiplies into several episodes, all of them feeding off of the unusual amount of time and growing into pieces of writing that are not only longer but better.  On the other hand, the end of the night puts a definite pressure on episodes to find their natural end.  After 700 episodes and counting, it’s proven productive to alternate the practice between different parts of the day in order to get a bit of benefit from each situation.  In this way, the practice of writing is a living, breathing thing that is subjected to it’s own stresses and relaxations, it’s own sort of famine of time and feasts of imagination.  But this living thing still arose from something much smaller, when such tiny efforts were not at all casual, but ponderously difficult as a universe of all possible sentences weighed down upon the will to actually desecrate the blank page with a decision.

THE ART OF READING

April 28th, 2020

Every sentence is a puzzle. It doesn’t feel like this because we are so adept to understanding the code. But think back to when you were learning how to read.  At first the symbols were mysterious, and just by looking at them, our parents could evoke stories.  It was a kind of magic.  Then we struggled to puzzle out the words as we learned, and slowly the lockbox of each sentence cracked open to reveal a hidden meaning.

Then a problem emerges.  We come to think we’ve learned how to read, as though the skill has a level of competence that signals total completion.  But as with many things, there exist layers of ability and benefit beyond mere competence.  After we can read well enough to puzzle out the meaning of unfamiliar words from context alone, the advancement of ability no longer pertains to the raw mechanics of language, that of words, their definitions and the way they relate to others in a sentence to create a cohesive statement.  After we have gained a fluid competence with the mechanics of language – and this is where it is generally declared that someone knows how to read – the task for an individual to become a better reader has to do with perspective.  The mechanics of language is merely the medium of reading, and competence is but the first step. 

Just because a toddler learns how to walk doesn’t mean they understand where they should go.  The art of reading has less to do with words on a page as much as it pertains to the ability of the mind to inhabit a range of perspectives, and specifically, the perspective of the writer.  The art of reading is in some sense the art of imagination.

Just as it’s easy to react to someone’s opinion with your own, it’s easy to grow bored and unimpressed with a piece of writing.  What is more impressive on the part of the listener, or the reader, is the ability to inhabit the mind of the speaker or the mind of the writer. 

We are poor listeners because we think hearing equates with listening.  Likewise, we assume there is nothing more to be gained simply because it’s possible to read and understand what’s on the page. 

We’re all vaguely aware of the possibility and large probability that we’ve often spoken before truly listening and understanding.  Why should it be any different with reading?  Especially when a writer has put in more thought, time, energy and investment into laying thoughts down in such a laborious manner. 

We rattle off books worth of talking every year, but how many actually take the time to write an actual book?  Just by dint of difficulty we should take what is written more seriously than what is said.  If someone has taken the time, then we can be sure that it meant that much to at least one person and with the hope that it might matter to more.  Most talk arises just so we can hear the sound of our own existence.

In lieu of this breakpoint in the ability to read, many writers end up pandering to the average reader who has developed little beyond a knowledge and know-how of the mere mechanics of language.  This is a race to the bottom – a regression to the mean - as writers try to appeal to the largest number of people, the writing is forced to become diluted, and by default: mediocre.

It’s good in moderation but a fallacy in the extreme, grafted from the petty business motto that the customer is always right.  While that might be true for ephemeral products that are produced to generate a business and a profit, it would be short-sighted in the least to say that such a motto applies to something like writing, which can effectively last forever.  Dear writers, you aren’t simply writing for the current hoi polloi that you find yourself surrounded by, your audience extends from the billions that exist today to all future generations.  Your audience is effectively infinite.  So why cater to the opinion of a few around you who currently spout the need for simple, short, clear, concise and potentially plain?

Good writing urges the reader to level up their game as a reader.  Some very good writing can be downright obnoxious, but such noxious effect is double-edged in it’s effect, like hormesis, it’s uncomfortable, but we benefit from that very discomfort.  To crack a dictionary at the very least, and at most, to think in a way we’ve never considered before.  Is the gift any less beneficial if you have to work for it a little?  Certainly not, which explains why literary types will proudly attest to having read a book like Ulysses, Moby Dick, Don Quixote, or Paradise Lost.  Some how the reading of such tomes feels like an accomplishment in it’s own right.  While this is certainly not true in all cases, it most definitely is in some.  The difference of course is whether a person has simply spent time looking at each and every word of such large books in order, or if they actually understood the levels of meaning that are reverberating through the text?  Subtext, by default is a second perspective, and good writing begs the question of the reader: how agile is your perspective?  Will you get lost in the rabbit hole or are you up for the adventure?

Writers are lured by the zen-like simplicity of aphorisms, metaphors, as though it might be possible for all great ideas to be phrased simply enough for any dullard to understand and thereby expand readership, the newsletter, views, and retweets.  Great writing can certainly dabble in it’s fair share of such simplicity.  All of this is not to say that there isn’t immense benefit in trimming and simplifying writing.  It is a valuable exercise, but again, taken to an extreme, it risks a regression to an uninteresting mean.

Great writers are first great readers, but we never see this part of the process.  We don’t see the many and various levels upon which their mind is interacting with the text, but to be sure, there is nothing simple and straight forward about the way a great writer approaches a piece of reading.  By such time, there are a multitude of perspectives that are taking part, like an entire chorus of judges, students, characters and thinkers. 

How do you think of reading?  Do you expect to be spoon fed like an infant?  Or have you developed the skill to smell out more meaning and hunt around for it?  This of course begs no offense for those who do prefer to be spoon fed their reading in forms that are effortless to digest.  Some reading is entertainment, and that’s fine, but we should not confuse ‘some reading’ for the entire medium. This piece of writing only begs for such people’s respectful silence when faced with something that is perhaps beyond their ability, or at the very least, a little complex.  The written thought is almost certainly worth more than a reader’s lack of attention.  A written sentence, by default requires more attention to produce than it does to consume.

Perhaps this is why some great writers grow so cryptic, like James Joyce.  The coyness of such writing is perhaps born out of a frustration with vapid consumption.  It’s parroted often today: create more than you consume.  It’s good advice not just because it seems to lead to better mental health, but someone who creates is imbued with a respect for the creation of others.  Such creators are quicker to understand the effort, attention and thoughtfulness that went into the production of some novel work.

The point of reading is at core the same as writing: to expand perspective.  Both require work.  If a reader fails to understand, there’s only a small chance the writing is actually gibberish.  The reader who is quick to throw up their hands or become distracted by something else only does a disservice to themselves.

Even poor writing, or a rough draft offers enormous opportunity for a reader.  Just as the writer is struggling to figure out what they mean to say, so too can the reader – so must the reader.  A great reader may even understand more than the writer can convey, like completing a sentence for a lover stuck on words.  Instead of calling something garbage, the great reader turns into the teacher, editor and student, and seeks to further themselves by trying to understand why it’s garbage, and what the writer actually meant.

If readers are treated like coddled toddlers, than the audience for such writing will end up being like coddled toddlers, seemingly lazy due to their inability, mouth open, waiting for the spoon.

A great reader who understands there is an art to their task wants the challenge.  But not everyone is an artist, and that’s fine.  This piece of writing merely begs any and every reader to pause before laying down a verdict: there may be more going on than you realize.  This happens in real life all the time.  As they say, hindsight is 20/20.  Considering art imitates life, would it be any surprise that there’s more going on than you realize  with the words right under your nose?

BLANK PRESSURE

April 27th, 2020

For some, creativity arises in all sorts of situations, while bored, while under pressure, while curious.

For a great many people, it requires boredom.  A lot of it.  And many people never get enough boredom to crack open that mental toolbox and get busy with something truly original and creative.

We distract ourselves with shows and reruns, games, podcasts, and zoom hangouts.  We coast through undemanding jobs that succeed only in filling our time, and occupying our minds just enough, to keep boredom at bay despite how unfulfilling the tasks might be.

It’s perhaps the case that many people require so much boredom to crack that creative toolbox because we’ve been trained to be occupied.  Almost no one finds school immensely satisfying and fulfilling.    Our time is simply spoken for, and the education we get fills the space that we might otherwise use to try something interesting.

Quarantine has proven an interesting experiment in boredom.  People are antsy, restless and “going crazy”.  But if this were to continue, would everyone just continue in this state?  Or is there a virtuous breaking point?  A point when the brain says, ok, I’ve had enough, lets do something, anything, this or that, and wait a minute, haven’t we always wanted to do….

If you’re bored, embrace it.  Don’t distract yourself from it with petty entertainment.  

Put that blank pressure on your mind, sit with it, and soon enough the mind will start spinning up things you never dreamed you were capable of doing.

A LUCILIUS PARABLE: PANDEMICS OF CAUTION AND WEALTH

April 26th, 2020

When the bureaucrats finally understood what the scholars were suggesting, they began to laugh, astonished at the audacity, the enormous cost they were suggesting. 

Lucilius stood along a wall with other scribes as the looked on at the great circular table where the meeting was taking place.  Torches lined the walls and smoke rose from a small fire in a vast copper bowl that was affixed in the center of the great table.

The scholars had delivered their presentation in a formal language, and the first of the bureaucrats to speak after their laughter had calmed, spoke in a ghettoed tongue, one they all knew but never spoke, one spoken only by the lowest and poorest of the city.  The bureaucrat looked at the head scholar and sneered with a smile as he insulted him doubly, by his words and by the deep subordination his choice of language insinuated. 

“Are you crazy, old man?”

The bureaucrat switched to the language of bureaucrats, still different from the chosen language of the scholars.  Everyone in attendance knew dozens of languages, spoke them, wrote them, and switched their use to further flavor their nuance of message.

“The cost alone…” the bureaucrat closed his eyes, gently shaking his head as though to indicate the enormity of the mental task he was undertaking.

“Inconceivable.”

The head scholar, whom Lucilius worked closely with spoke, switching languages again, this time a tongue used by the merchants where all were comfortable with numbers and calculations.

“It is only a matter of time before our great library is visited upon by some disaster, and in order to preserve our knowledge, our history and our wisdom, we must as once begin a second library and begin the long process of duplicating our treasure.”

“Not enough to do?” The bureaucrat shot back.  “It seems the library must be benefitting too much from the support of the state if it’s looking to undertake such needless duplicative work, and then asking for more money for such an extraneous proposal.  Can you scribbling men not be happy with what you have?”

“One leg cannot walk without the other,” The scholar retorted.

“One needs only a single copy of a scroll to read it.  Come now old man, where is your cup of Hemlock, your rhetoric is as bad as your old reasoning.”

Lucilius could see the scholar was unruffled, unfazed.  “And if I plucked out one of your eyes, would you be glad the Gods wasted their time giving you two?”

The bureaucrat across the wide table sighed.  “The answer is ‘no’, there’s no need to entertain this matter any further, and in fact, I am going to recommend to the treasury that we decrease funding for the library, since you all clearly have enough time to come up with such ridiculous ideas.”

The scholar slammed his fist upon the table.  “We must build a second library, or we risk losing everything, and then all our children, and their children and the people for a hundred generations will be as lost as our ancestors were.  The only reason you can banter back at me in the diseased languages, and the merchant languages, and hear our words in the formal languages is because this library exists.  And there is only one.  If we lose it then all of this fades from our world as the past fades from our memories and as the flesh fades from cold bones that move no more.”

The lesser bureaucrats shifted, uneasily, looking at their leader who held the gaze of the scholar, unimpressed.  Then he looked down at the scroll he’d been given at the beginning, outlining the plan, the costs and the details.  He rolled it back up, stood, and then tossed the plan into the copper bowl in the center of the table where it flamed up, the dry paper quickly disintegrating into tiny bright ashes that floated up in the smoke. 

Some scholars gasped at the treachery, the audacity of burning such an important commodity. 

“Your precious library will be just fine, and it’s enough library for Alexandria” the bureaucrat stated before he turned and walked away, the lesser bureaucrats rising and trailing in tow.

The scholars rose and huddled into a gaggle of nervous, hushed talking, and the leader of them all emerged from the group, walking away from the table. 

Lucilius joined his side, likewise nervous but noticed the calm expression on the scholar’s face.

“What are we going to do?”  Lucilius asked?

The scholar smiled a bit, looking to Lucilius.

“Whatever we can.”

RIPPLES

April 25th, 2020

The way yesterday went has a great impact on how today goes.  That virtuous or vicious relation carries over and marches forward.  What we do today has a big impact on the way tomorrow goes.

Each day is a balancing act where things can pivot for better or for worse.

Two easy examples demonstrate just how loaded this ripple effect is and how viscerally we realize it in some cases and totally fail to see it in others.

The first is cramming for a test.  We’ve all done this.  During the day before we pack every waking moment with a scan of information, a repetition of knowledge, believing that we’ll be better prepared if we can just cover as much content as possible and retrace our steps over the most important parts.  In this instance it’s fairly obvious and pretty straight forward how one day effects the next.

The second example is a hangover.  The night is full of celebration, and we live it up, and the next day, we’re practically out of commission.  We know that this happens, but our ability to willfully ignore it is sometimes just as strong as our concentration when cramming for a test.

Each day sets up the next, but we are only sometimes thinking about our current efforts in terms of future efforts.  When we do, the efforts can compound.  Preparing for the test for several days in a row, or even several weeks makes the experience of that information far more efficient and effective than cramming it all into a day.  There is an aspect of momentum that seems to exist in our minds, and ripples sent from the past time and again have a capacity to compound upon the present, sometimes giving us incredible abilities.

We know how easy or difficult it can be to get back into the groove.  Leave off working on a project for a few days and it can easily balloon into weeks, months, and forever.  Diving back into it can leave a person scratching their own head, wondering what took so long.  The next step rarely turns out to be as difficult as we fear, yet the time of unseized days has a way of rippling forward and compounding into a barrier.  The same seems to be true in relationships when people fall out of touch.  As time goes by it becomes somehow harder and harder to make that first step.

We get into a rhythm, and the beat of that rhythm is set by the days we’ve just played.  Each day is a chance when that beat might change.  It’s not too hard to tweak, especially if you have a history of tweaking those days.  Those ripples of change carry forward, making each new iteration a bit easier.