DANCING WITH MISFORTUNE

March 18th, 2020

Many people suddenly have a lot of free time today.  For many, this means loss of jobs, and financial insecurity, it means businesses with blood and sweat in their foundations might not make it.  It means a lot of people are bewildered and blindsided, and the shock of the emerging situation will echo for a few days.  All of these situations are nonetheless better than fighting to breathe while you watch a distressed doctor struggle over the decision of whether you should get the life-saving ventilator or if the suffering person next to you should.

For once, the sacrifice of average people, together, are saving lives.

But on top of this, the horrible and bizarre situation is rife with opportunity.  And this is not meant in the way of opportunism.  There really is some beautiful opportunity with this free time.

Novels will be written.  Apps will be built. Relationships will be strengthened.  Great habits will be formed.  Businesses will be started.  Long dreamt projects will finally begin to emerge in the real world.

Nothing is more valuable than free time, and many of us have just been handed a boatload of it.  Once the shock wears off and we gain our bearings with the emerging solutions of our individual financial situations, we will have the opportunity to pause, to reconsider priorities in the absence of many of them and wonder:

what should I do?

This alone is a gift that many people don’t get, sometimes for decades on end. Suddenly it has been forced into your life.

In years to come, many people will think back on this moment in history and be thankful it happened because of the invisible opportunity it became, the seed of time that grew into a tree of productivity and fruited with prosperity.

Sure, clean the house to help with your stress.  Buy some more toilet paper if it’s really going to make your day, but after all that settles, and you finally have the luxury to get a little bored, ask yourself:

what should I do?

The answer becomes your life.

BETTER SAFE

March 17th, 2020

How long does an instance of being safe last? 

Put it side by side with something more familiar:  how long do regrets last?

Both have the same answer: forever.  The difference of course is that we remember the regret, the stupid mistake, the embarrassing faux pas.  But when we exercise a little safety and some risk never comes to pass?  We never remember this.  There’s nothing to remember.  And so it can seem as though the preparation and the cautionary action was for nothing. 

It’s a strange set of circumstances to undertake an effort with the explicit purpose of making sure nothing happens.  But this is often what safety is when successful.  A whole lot for nothing.  it can easily seem reasonable that doing nothing will get nothing, and tempt us to let things play out.

We have a hard time keeping in mind what’s not right in front of us.  Especially things that are invisible in some way or simply never exist because our whole aim was to live life without the accident, the tragedy.

Successful safety is all about the imagination.  It’s a matter of accurately and precisely imagining a world that you explicitly aim to make sure never materializes.

It’s the goal of keeping fiction as fiction.

But that’s the thing: without an effort to try and imagine the worst, we also cease to imagine a way to avoid it.

Better safe than sorry, and in this case, that requires an imagination dosed with pessimism.

BURN THE BOATS

March 16th, 2020

If you know there’s something you have to do, pull out the stops, dive in without teetering and make sure you dive deep.

There have been many instances when generals and leaders have made the call to seal off the way back; to ensure that the only way available is forward and thereby towards victory.

There’s nothing quite like no choice to make you certain about the choice you have.

That’s the whole point.  It’s a measure of commitment, one that forces you into it.  We’re generally very uncomfortable about this in the modern world.  Our universe is all about infinite customization, in order to fit out unique preferences.  But this backfires is many instances by creating an environment ripe for ambivalence.

Such ambivalence often comes from decision-fatigue.  This is the downfall of a marketplace like Etsy.  So many options, so many artists and crafters, what to choose?  The experience becomes one of browsing as oppose to one of purchasing. 

This is the whole point of ‘burning the boats’.  If there’s an option to go back home, then our commitment to the next step is always potentially lukewarm.  And what good is that?

Are we more likely to succeed with a lukewarm step forward, or a determined charge to succeed?

The answer is obvious.  Which calls into question our culture of infinite choice.

The real task may not be the choice but the elimination.

What can I eliminate from my life in order to streamline my efforts toward the long term goals that I’m really seeking to accomplish?

Better yet, what decisions can I make that force me forward with no hope of returning to the safe cocoon that I’m now in?

This is the essence of burning the boats.  Sometimes we have to truncate the use of our tools, disavowing ourselves of such tools to make sure we take the next hard step forward.

A LUCILIUS PARABLE: A GAME OF SKIN

March 15th, 2020

Lucilius was not paying much attention as he watched with lackluster interest, his student pulling back the drawstring.  All he saw were errors, the form, the tension of the student’s muscles, the angled arms, the curve of spine.  Lucilius knew where the arrow would go.  But he did not instruct, not seeing the bubbled hope on the student’s face.  Lucilius was caught in images from long ago, from a time when he himself was learning.

Invisible across the water, the wind had been crisp, flexing the taut sail cloth, bending the stiff mast.  The boat heeled as it sped up, water taunting the edge, tinting it green.  Ease the main, the old sailor had whispered gently, and Lucilius at the helm let out some of the strickened line.  The buried edge slipped out of the water and the boat levelled.

The student released the drawstring and the arrow careened off at an awkward angle.  The student sighed hard and fast and then unsheathed another arrow and drew it back against the drawstring again.  Lucilius casually stepped forward and tapped the boy’s shoulder down, and pushed a finger on the bow against it’s natural lay, and poked the boy’s side, making him jolt up straighter, tapped his pinched elbow up higher and then grasped a lock of the boy’s hair at the top of his head and pulled skyward.  The boy grimaced as he stood straighter, trying to hold together all of the adjustments, trembling like a paper building before the softest movements of air.  Lucilius took a step back to look at the boy, not noticing his own bored sigh as he did.  The boy’s back had slumped again in response to all the other tensions he was holding and Lucilius quickly stepped forward again to poke the boy back to posture.  The tiny details of the boy’s hard-set face quivered but Lucilius did not notice.  Lucilius’ mind was elsewhere, remembering. . .

Close your eyes Lucilius.  Now gently push her into the turn, and as she rounds, feel how the water eases and then tugs on her.  That’s how you’ll know when she’s ‘round.  I’ll handle the lines.  Ready when you are. 

Lucilius could remember even now all these years later as he brought the helm over with his eyes closed. How the weight had shifted against his feet, his body swaying with the move, the loose feel of the helm in the spin, and then quickly how it grew a force against his hold.  He’d opened his eyes to a wide and nodding smile. 

Beautiful.

Now Lucilius watched the rickety posture of his own student, the small waver of the arrow tip.  Lucilius knew how wide-cast that waver was, and when the arrow flew, Lucilius did not even follow it’s flight.  He took the bow from the boy and with a slick speed of years and hours in the thousands threaded the arrow to a full draw. 

See? Lucilius asked.  All of the body’s movements are at once. 

He eased the drawstring and then quickly repeated the swift move before the straining, wanting eyes of the boy. 

Again, Lucilius said. 

The boy took up the bow, drawing in all his breath.  With teeth clenched and unseen the boy fitted the arrow, and then tried to expand himself as Lucilius had done, drawing the arrow back.  But the boy was weak in ways that could not be filled in the moment, but only with great time, and because of this, he wavered in his core.  The arrow went it’s own way, and the student looked again to Lucilius.  The boy’s teacher had a face that showed plainly his truest thoughts, his better mind elsewhere soaked in years past with a time when he –Lucilius- had been a student.  And because of this he failed to keep up the face his student needed, failed to see where his student was truly wanting. 

You aren’t paying attention to the right places.

What should I pay attention to?

Only fundamentals.  Your body.  The breath.  How both move, expand, how they rise to show you the right moment..

So I shouldn’t look at the target?  The boy said looking off at the far circle, confused.

Lucilius waved a dismissive hand at the target without looking.  That, is just a detail.  It doesn’t matter.

The boy looked at him, more confused, and then the boy’s eyes wandered around as though they hoped to catch something that was missing.

How do I pay more attention to the body and the breath?  The boy finally asked.

Lucilius pointed at a pair of empty wooden buckets and a thin yoke that connected the two handles.  Carry water up the stairs  for the rest of your day’s practice.

And with that Lucilius left, failing to feel the boy’s confusion who saw the buckets as punishment, not as an exercise for strength, as Lucilius intended.

The next day Lucilius watched again as the boy wobbled in his stance, his tired frame struggling against the draw of the bow, his sore fingers aching in their task, begging to shy away from the boy’s drive.  But he was unyielding.  The arrow flew and the target was left unblemished.  The boy sighed and looked patiently towards Lucilius, but the boy’s teacher only shook his head with closed eyes. 

The body.  The breath, Lucilius said. 

The boy nodded as he nocked another arrow, but he held the bow just like that, staring at the target.  Just when he would usually draw the string all the way back, he only stood still, watching that elusive circle, so clear before his eyes, and yet shrouded.  It lay behind an impossible veil.

Then the boy took the arrow off the bowstring and placed it back in the quiver.  He did not look at Lucilius but walked to the wall display and hung the bow up in it’s place.  Then the boy turned briefly to Lucilius, bowed deeply, and then walked away. 

The next day when Lucilius expected to receive his student, he was left waiting.  Lucilius stood watch for an hour, then two hours.  Then after three hours, he wandered off into his garden, an arrow in one hand.  He sat down beneath a giant oak that he’d planted long ago and watched the arrow as he balanced it on an outstretched finger.  The boy did not show and would never return. 

Lucilius spent the day sitting in the garden, thinking, reminiscing once more.

He could smell the salt and stink of fresh sea air.  The speckling light on the water like millions of stone faces soundlessly chipped anew, reflecting again the crisp light.

Are you ready to be tested? Lucilius was asked. 

Lucilius grew worried.  I don’t know, he said. 

A big barrel laugh sounded.  That’s right.  Not for you to know.  This is where I must learn and test myself.

Wait, Lucilius said, puzzled, as he handled the boat’s helm.  Who is getting tested here?

A broad smile answered him.  Both of us.

Lucilius was handed the two lines for the other sails in addition to the helm he held.  The old sailor smiled at him. 

Well here goes.  Save me Lucilius.

And with that the old sailor swiftly mounted the gunwale and tossed himself into the water.  Lucilius was drawn into shock as he tried to realize the lines in his hands, the pull of the helm and the man now far behind in the water.  Lucilius looked back, spotting the man’s smiling face as it bobbed between the waves.  Lucilius checked the sails and corrected his course.

Ok, ok, he repeated to himself, as a plan of necessity emerged in his mind.  The old man had lead them downwind.  Lucilius would have to beat back up in order to get him back aboard, and the longer he waited the harder it would be.  Lucilius drew in the lines and spun the boat high against the wind, and then tacked onto a second course, now calm under the rattle of sail and line, knowing their meaning now, drawing them in again as the wind caught once more.  And then slowly Lucilius worked the boat back upwind towards the old sailor in the sea.

Lucilius sat beneath the great oak, remembering that time on the ocean and finally noticed that he was bleeding.   His fiddling hands had drilled the arrow tip into one of his fingers. 

There was something satisfying about the ach of pain that had dulled before the pinch, now realizing what he’d done as he’d been lost in the old reverie.

He watched the bright maroon lick a path down his hand as he held it raised to see.

Months later the wind whipped through the garden, pulling acorns from the vast tree.  A girl stood against the wind, her eyes set, the draw string creasing into her cheek.  The arrow flew, bending through the tossed air.  And then she looked to Lucilius for his reaction.  He was nodding.

It’s time, you are ready, he said.

The young woman’s face grew with question as Lucilius stepped close to her.  He swiftly grasped the string that held her long hair in a tight bun and snapped it, loosing her hair to grow suddenly wild in the wind.  The girl wiped a hand up along her face to reveal her startled look.

Do not touch your hair, Lucilius said.

But I can’t see, she said, confused.

Your hair is a part of you, Lucilius said.  You will have to see with it.  And now you will aim for the apple.

What apple?  the woman asked, rattled now, only seeing Lucilius in fluttering glimpses that peered through the blinking gaps of her hair as it sailed in the wind.

Lucilius did not answer.  He turned and began to walk out towards the target. The young woman held her hair aside against Lucilius’ words to watch as the man arrived at the target.  She watched as he gently removed the arrows and piled them near the target, and then he turned to her, standing in front of the wide target, and from a fold in his robes, Lucilius removed an apple, and leaning back against the target, he placed the apple on top of his own head.

Lucilius could see a familiar shock filling the girl’s face, but he knew now what was required to quell the calculating mind, to draw it into the heart of a student. 

The girl stood a few moments longer in shock, holding her hair aside.  Then she released it, letting her long locks run freely with the wind.  She took up her bow.  She fitted the arrow and drew it back, breathing deeply, expanding herself against the power of the bow. 

And just before she let the weapon fly, Lucilius smiled, and closed his eyes.

FIRST DRAFT

March 14th, 2020

We don’t often hear about great editors writing great novels.  There are certainly great editors that have been fundamental to the creation of great works of literature, and certainly writers have been quick and eager to gain feedback from their fellow creators.  But the span of skills here does not seem to be bi-directional.  Being a great editor seems less likely to make you a great writer than being a great writer equips you to be a good editor.

The explanation may be quite simple here: you get good at what you do repeatedly.  Writers become good writers and editors become good editors.  But what goes overlooked in this statement is that writers are constantly editing as they produce.

When we speak or put word to page, we do not do so haphazardly, we do so with intention, and this intention is a filter of what is actually occurring in our conscious experience.  This filter is a form of editing, and it’s even more pronounced as writers edit as they write.  When a sentence is put down, and then a slightly better version is immediately hit upon and then put down to replace the first.  This happens with sentences, with clauses and of course right down to individual words.  How many sentences get hung up on single words as we search for the right one?  This search is a process of editing.  Usually we have an inferior word that first comes to mind that ‘sort of’ captures the sentiment that we are trying to trace.  Perhaps we resort to a thesaurus, or perhaps it comes to us and we move on.

In this way, writers are exercising their abilities to edit on the fly.  From here, it’s far less of a leap to edit something into a second draft than it is for an editor to employ a reversal of their skill set and generate a great piece of writing.   This isn’t to say that editors can’t produce great pieces of writing.  Indeed, it almost goes without saying that it’s a love of writing that usually gets an editor into the business in the first place.  The distinction here is merely to point out which skills become stronger  and why.  The skill of writing and editing are complementary and so entwined that one cannot exist without the other.  The point here is merely to highlight that the pursuit of one skill over the other is asymmetrical in its results.

From the beginning Tinkered Thinking has been an experiment in the art of the First Draft.  Namely: is it possible to get better at writing something cohesive, and thoughtful in a limited amount of time?  The reader will be the judge, and the writer will hedge bets by spending more time producing than fine-tuning.

The logic here extends from a straight-forward fact: you can’t edit a blank page.  Something must first be produced, and it’s better to have a cannon to sift through when selecting something to polish than to be stuck with just one thing.  700 mico-essays later, this cannon is gaining some plump, and that gives Tinkered Thinking many more options to explore behind the scenes than would a smaller body of work.

Editing is essential, but in the age when written content is more and more free of charge, where should we spend out time?  Shall we spend it editing something that may be read by just a few people?  Or is time better spent practicing the art of the first draft?

Given time, a writer’s audience grows, even past the writer’s death, and as that audience grows, the likelihood that a fan emerges goes up and up.  A writer might not produce the most polished work, but given time, it’s quite likely that someone will come along that enjoys the work so much that they take it upon themselves to edit it.  We need only look to ancient works like Letters to Lucilius written by Seneca.  That writing was undertaken with just an audience of one in mind, but through the centuries that audience has grown tremendously, and of course as editions of this writing have emerged, they have emerged edited.  The word probably takes on a bit of a different meaning here, that being most writings of this category appear as selections, but the point remains:  the writer is more likely to get better by writing.

All of this points to an easy and simple mandate for new writers: just write, and keep writing and don’t worry if it’s good or not.  That’s a concern for later.

Postscript:  It’s perhaps important to frame this topic with the fact that the writer here used to spend hundreds of hours editing single paragraphs and even single sentences.  Think about that for a moment.  Imagine spending an entire week, eight to twelve hours a day writing iterations of a single sentence in the hunt for a very specific effect. 

There is a time and a place for everything, and where the writer is concerned, more of that time and space should be handed over to the act of writing.  FYI: this episode was written start to finish in about 25 minutes.  If that seems at all impressive, realize that after attempting to do this everyday for 700 days in a row, it’s merely commonplace, like eating a certain number of calories everyday, but in this case, I have more to show for it than a lovehandle.

This topic heavily relates to Episode 411: Quality of Quantity