zen and the art of intentional procrastination

* Updated at the bottom

It takes a lot of effort to prioritize. There’s the judging, and the weighing, and the balancing and contrasting. One must take into consideration scenarios both probable and im-, measure the potential consequences of each choice carefully, count the cost of each path not chosen, consider the ramifications.

It’s an awful lot of work.

...to be clear...

Someone I adore, someone I respect and admire, thought that when I said I was thinking about balance and careers last week, I was actually saying that I’d decided writing wasn’t as important as I’d thought and that I was dropping the gig, at least as far as doing it for the rest of my life to the exclusion of most other things went.

So, obviously, I wasn’t very clear.

What I meant to say clearly then: What I am abjuring is the clutter that is so often conflated with writing these days, or being any kind of artist for that matter. I told a friend the other day, “I’m a writer. If I wanted to be a marketer,” I said, “I’d get into fucking marketing.”

I don’t want to be an ad-man. I want to tell stories. I want to live them too, but that’s me. Adventure is as much a reason for the life inversion as the writing and story telling is, so for me there has to be a balance of living and writing and imagining. For me, if there isn’t that trichotomy, I’m wasting oxygen.

To be clear then, I hope I die either writing a novel (preferably something really great and at the end) or climbing (preferably something really high and at the top). One or the other; I’d be happy with either.

examination

I had the most interesting conversation on Twitter last night, one that grew (unexpectedly) out of yesterday’s post. I can’t get it out of my mind.

It was about authenticity (again), and control. Specifically, about whether taking ownership is, perhaps, an attempt to control too much. About whether self-examination can lead to a lack of authenticity – to what? Narcissism? A lack of mindfulness? A preoccupation with the past or future; things that we can’t control? Some, or all, or maybe none of those.

In a true moment of not letting go completely, I just kept thinking about it and thinking about it. Because that’s what I do, whether I should or not, whether it helps or not; I think about it until I can either understand, or feel satisfied that I never will. Or understand that it’s not time to understand yet. Sometimes we just have to let stuff sit in the dust, rest in its inscrutability, until we have the right hands to pick it up with, the right eyes to see.

And, yes, sometimes we just have to let it go and embrace the mystery.

I graded for my fifth kyu in Ki-Aikido a few weeks ago. I didn’t want to. The western system of colored belts bothers me on a subdural level. In Japan they don’t use colorful belts. You wear white until you wear black. I want to rebel against the artificial gradations. (And yellow is not my color.) But they still test on the way to the black belt, grading progress and providing unseen benchmarks, steps in the air that are invisible but strong enough to stand on so that the next level can be seen. I’d rather not wear the belt, but I accept and enjoy that the testing has to happen, and appreciate knowing that I can move forward.

I think that I approach the mirror the same way. I’m not looking for external validation as I do it (he says in his blog – oh, the irony), but testing myself helps me know where to go next, what to keep and improve, or what to leave behind. Sometimes the most surprising things happen, like when I discover that an old thing, trait, behavior that I never really liked no longer serves a purpose; that I can leave it on the side of the road and just keep walking instead of carrying the dead weight around.

Socrates said that an unexamined life was not worth living, and I buy that. Granted, I’m invested. Maybe I’m just a fan because I want to enable my own navel gazing. I have to admit the possibility, right? But can’t we wonder about the future and pick through the past without losing hold of the moment, of the present. Can’t we?

Earlier this week Stephen Elliot talked about how people don’t really change. Who we were is who we are is who we are. I buy that to a point too. To a point.

But we evolve too. There may be a core that can’t change, but how we dress it can. There may be an ‘us’ that can’t change, but how that ‘us’ interacts with the world, perceives it, embraces it or not; that can change. That can evolve. And that requires some level of examination, whether we burn the barn or go through it one item at a time, or maybe a bit of both. The examination is ongoing and painful and beautiful and grotesque and distracting and enlightening…

… and absolutely, authentically, worth it.

___

P.S. Sadly, my URL change yesterday had one unforeseen consequence that has no remedy at the present time: ID has no process in place to navigate all the ID comments made on the old URL into the new URL. All those comments and tiny conversations are lost to the outside now. Sorry, my fault.

If it helps, I can still see them all and visit the threads through the ID dashboard, but the truth is that I already miss them.

for the record

When I started my manuscript I planned on using a pen name to publish it. My thinking was that, because I also wanted to write non-genre fiction and maybe memoir one day, and wanted my real name on those efforts, I should use a pen name for the genre fiction.

I was worried about having my name associated with one genre, and how that might make finding representation and a publisher for anything else difficult. I was thinking way too hard. I was also hedging bets. I can see that now.

I’ve been thinking a lot about concepts like platform, self-promotion, authenticity, and honesty lately. That old position just doesn’t make sense to me any more. Frankly, it seems disingenuous for me.

Not “to me”; “for me”. Pen names are obviously a time honored tradition. I just don’t think it’s one that fits with where I am or where I want to be one day. Besides, I found Iain [M] Banks, so there are pretty easy ways to get around that “making yourself easily identifiable to your readers” thing.

So, while I’m still going to abjure the pushy self-promotion vibe, I do want to take ownership.

When I started thinking out loud I had no clue what I was doing as a blogger. I started using quotes as an excuse to express my opinions instead of using quotes to inform the writing. I felt like using my name in the URL for Blogger was egotistical, so I used the (over-used – I admit it) title in the URL. Then I used the title of the blog to inform my Twitter handle, again feeling awkward about using my name.

I mean, who the fuck was I?

That’s changed. This isn’t (I don’t think, #pleasenopleaseno) about ego. It’s about that ownership concept. If I succeed, I’ll have to take responsibility for it. If I fail, that’s me too.

So yesterday I changed my Twitter handle to @m_d_lockhart. Underscores are apparently verboten and I was threatened with ostracization until I explained that some other guy took @mdlockhart and hasn’t ever tweeted. (Not once. Future representation, as you read this, please make a note that I’d like to fix that one day when I’m basking in the blessed waters of mid-list-ship.)

Today I changed my Blogger URL. It was impulsive, the decision, part of the rush of owning something I think. Of course, anyone with thinkingoutloud-thinkfree.blogspot in their bookmarks (what, it could happen…) will no longer find their way here.

Hence this post, which is really about very little other than to make sure that the few, the appreciated, the deeply cherished that subscribe or admit coming here get the memo that my web address has changed. For the record, you are currently visiting www.michaeldlockhart.blogspot.com (or will be if you follow the link from your e-mail). I've also appropriately changed my Feedburner and NetworkedBlogs settings. 

I think we're good to go, but I'm probably wrong. If this causes anyone to have to readjust anything, sorry. Had to be done though, had to be done.

I’ll be hanging out here now. No plans to change the title, just so we’re clear. I feel (comfortably) stuck with that. It’s a good description for what I do here so long as we use “thinking” broadly and as a euphemism.

in the absence of answers

What a great day yesterday was.

Like I said yesterday, it was tear down day at the climbing gym, the day we closed early so as to strip every hold off of every wall so that the route setting geniuses can start putting up comp routes for the weekend. So we twisted bolts and climbed ladders and pealed tape from 8 to 10, 14 of us or so, in a hectic, frenetic, kinetic laugh-a-thon.

Before that, I got to do some #amrevising, working on a chapter that required more than just fixing little things, doing a line by line edit in order to take an emaciated framework and add some flesh to it. The more I revise, the more I understand how writers can have a problem letting go of a WIP, especially a first one: There’s so much learning, evolving, improving involved in the first time that, every time I come back to a chapter I haven’t touched for a month or two, I see entirely different ways to make it better.

At this rate, the manuscript will be finished never. That’s not a tenable position, so I’ve set April 21 as my mail-to-beta-readers day. I can get all picky again after that, but I have to actually set a shipping date, because the learning will never end.

 I also got to carry on my favorite ongoing internet conversation before the gym, and I got in a great (if short) session of climbing before the strip-fest began.

And then, as if all of that wasn’t enough, I was provided the bonus of listening to a repeat of this morning's Q with Jion Ghomeshi on the drive home. The part I listened to was an interview with Canadian musical icon Bruce Cockburn. I’ve never actually been a huge fan, but have always respected him. His music has never moved me miles, but his activism and integrity have.

He was talking about his visit to Afghanistan in 2009. His brother is a Captain and physician in the Canadian Armed Forces (family dinners might be interesting), and he also played a concert for the Canadian troops there. He said that the people he talked to there, members of the medical mission, believed in their role but thought it would take 30 years for it too succeed; that a place like Afghanistan would need that much time just to birth and raise a generation that had a concept of what peace might look like.

They didn’t expect that the mission there would last that long.

I thought of Greg Mortensen (Three Cups of Tea) and his effort to accomplish the same goal – a generation of Afghanis and Pakistanis that understand the concept of peace – through education. I had a hard time not contrasting the two approaches.

Cockburn talked about his other trips to war zones, both as an activist and performer. He said that he’s never gone to a war zone looking for material for his art. There are people, he said, that have a mandate to do so - journalists, writers, photographers, maybe poets – but that for him, doing so would have felt ‘inappropriate’.

But, he said, he always went with his eyes open. He went open to everything, but not looking for anything in specific. If material presented itself, he was prepared to accept it. And if it came, then it was his responsibility to apply all of his skill and craft to make the most of it.

I thought about the concept of manufactured versus organic, of counterfeit versus authentic. I thought it was a great way to view creativity – being open to the truth, and then applying every possibility of craft to take advantage of that truth. I thought about Elizabeth Taylor and how she might be as remembered for her activism (on behalf of HIV/AIDS going back way before it was fashionable) as she will be for the soap opera of her celebrity. I thought about which one I’d want to be remembered for.

It’s easy, I think, in our plastic world of intentional media confusion, our age of persuasion, to forget that people inhabit the caricatures we watch rise and fall on TV; that real people with sincere motives fight in wars that we detest. Lately, for me, it has seemed crucially important to remember how complicated everything is.

There were no conclusions to reach, none that did service to the issues. The perspective of complexity answers no questions at all, makes finite truths seem very far away, but while I sat here and nursed my sore wrists and stiff hands, the questions seemed more important than the answers anyway.

what it is, nothing more

I wrote a rant yesterday, and tried to spice it up with enough tongue-in-cheek sarcasm to feign the appearance of humor. Mostly I was just pissed off and ranting. Then I read a blog about “Tweeting good tweets” and “posting good posts” and how all of that is important to “building an online following” and “getting followers” and “establishing an online presence”.

My first thought was, “I guess I missed the mark and that one.” And then my second thought was, “Fuck it. I'll own that.!”

Not that there’s anything specifically wrong with the tricks and the games, but I know they aren’t for me. If I went that route, I’d never be able to forgive myself. I’m intentionally ignoring all the tricks for expanding my followers list on Twitter, intentionally choosing to post potentially uncomfortable links, expressing opinions, taking stands on issues. It’s been part of the inversion from, literally, day minus one. I know this blog and most of what I post on FB and Twitter has (on the surface of it, anyway) nothing to do with publishing a fantasy novel, but it has everything to do with trying to be authentic.

I’m sure they told Frank Herbert that about Dune too – too political, too ecologically sensitive, too subversive. And I know that Margaret Atwood catches constant shit about her political and social views. I’m not in their league (hell, I’m not in their universe, to be clear), but I admire their courage. I admire the integrity to have an opinion and a voice, damn the torpedoes. They make me want to aspire.

If (when) I publish, I will publish as me, not a persona. I’ve lived dual lives, a professional me and a personal me. It sucked. If my opinions and perspectives make that process harder, then so fucking be it. I refuse to sacrifice my freedom of thought and expression in order to be more popular or an easier sell.

Writing, being an artist, isn’t a game. This isn’t about winning anything or conquering anything. It’s about having a voice and a mind and sharing it, all of it, as honestly as we can. It’s about telling honest stories. If it’s fiction, as mine is, then the Picasso quote (which I found thanks to the inimitable Judy Clement Wall) applies: “Art is the lie that tells the truth.” If that means that I’ll never publish, because I’m not marketable, then so be that too. I’ll wear that, proudly.

Thoreau said, “I’d rather sit on a pumpkin and have it all to myself, than be crowded on a velvet cushion.” And then Einstein is attributed with saying something to the affect of, “If two people in the same room share all the same views on everything, one of them doesn’t need to be there.” That shit’s about abjuring the herd mentality, about not succumbing to it.

I won’t play games with my integrity for the sake of the possibility of a career. And if it ever turns into an actual career, I hope I still have enough integrity to be even louder when it counts most, and prove myself worthy of the career. I’d happily own failing as a marketable author for the sake of succeeding as a human with integrity.

If being honest and taking a stand means that I’ll never win the internet, I hope I never win the fucking internet.

P.S. This isn’t about anybody in particular. I’m just in a rant mood this week. Everything is coming out as a rant. I blame Gov. Scott Walker and my #amrevising playlist, which is largely comprised of Pearl Jam, Pink, Eminem, Foo Fighters, and Linkin Park. But, while I blame them, I still own every. Fucking. Word.


...


P.P.S. FYI: Intense Debate is acting weird on me. I have no moderation settings set, but comments are getting lost in the ether or, for some reason, to moderation. My apologies if you get lost - I have a help ticket submitted. I still appreciate every word of every comment though. Persevere for me, please.

dead calm

Inspiration is a fickle bitch.

I wrote two pages of drivel about why I haven’t posted this last week and deleted it. You’re welcome.

Here’s the simple truth – I got nothin’ right now. The doldrums I mentioned last week? Still here, still with me. I’d rather leave dead air than fill it for the sake of filling it.

I could manufacture something about Egypt, but smarter people than me have said smarter things than I could, and more insightful people have already said the right stuff about what it’s really about. I’m fucking excited about it though – Tunisia and Egypt are the most amazing things to happen to democracy since the ‘60s. I hope desperately that neither regional groups, nor the military, nor the West, hijack or even try to hijack what is happening there.

I could do some extended navel-gazing like the crap I deleted, but it wouldn’t be as honest as it should be, has to be, for what I need to be gazing at. It would just be a post for the sake of posting. Other than once or twice, fairly early on when stuff like stats and a schedule were things I thought might be important, I’ve tried not to post for the sake of posting. That’s not fair to me or you. That’s not what this is about.

So I’ll just shut up now and keep my head down, nurse my (six week old and counting) cold, and try to figure my shit out. When it’s honest, I’ll post it.

Love ya. Thanks for your patience. 

november

When I was eleven, the academic curriculum I was involved in at school was provided the opportunity to do a remarkable thing. Remarkable to us, in any case. We were allowed to make the big, dangerous walk across the street, through the sports fields, and into the giant halls of the Senior Secondary School to the confines of the band class so that we could participate in a unique grade seven music program. Through a quirk of fate and germs, I managed to miss the first visit. When I arrived in the second week, all of the really cool boy instruments – the trombones and trumpets, saxophones and tympanis, the lone guitar and drum kit – were taken.

I was left with the choice of clarinet or flute. The teacher said I had a good embouchure for flute (if @migroddy wanders through, maybe he can explain that concept in the comments), so that’s what I got. In time, I came to appreciate that placement – there are some really cute girls in the flute section – but at the time, just stumbling out of the blocks into pubescence with all of its sharp corners and early-adolescent contrasts, I did not feel lucky. I felt ripped off, like a cruel joke was being played on me. Like a giant “kick me” sign (to replace the one, only slightly smaller, that I already thought I possessed) had just been hung around my neck. I was not an enthusiastic student.

Three months later and heading towards the holiday break, I was facing my first test; about sixteen bars of simple melody that I could not complete on my best day. Not even close. My inadequacy was earned; I didn’t practice. The space between that band class and my closet space at school where I could hide the offending instrument, or home where I could hide it even better, was a bit of grade school social hell for me. Subsequently, I was on the road to failing said test, a probability that was, to me, as or more horrifying than the sentence of having to walk around in public with a flute case.

Not doing really well in school was not something I was comfortable with, in any subject. I was a nerd and proud of it. So with a few nights left before the test I suddenly came face to face with my desperation to excel and please my teachers, dug the flute out at home, and tried to practice.

It was dismal. When Mom now complains about tinnitus, I wonder whether that evening had something to do with it. I know that it didn’t, but still, I now know that nothing says “I love you” like a parent suffering through the early stages of music tutelage. After a whole fifteen minutes of trying and failing I was frustrated and ready to give up. I’d just quit the music program. I hated flute anyway, hated the snickers and the jokes and the insults. Mostly, to be honest, I hated not being better than the others. I hated standing out for the wrong reasons.

And then, for what was to be the first and last time, Mom made me keep trying. Like the one spanking I received, it had a profound effect. And like that one spanking, I’ve later wished she’d done it more. A lot more. I never really learned about how good discipline could be for you as a kid, but I wish sometimes that I’d had the opportunity to learn that lesson better, and younger.

But on that night, she was stern and strong and unwilling to equivocate on the subject of my practicing. As I got up to quit, she got in my face and made me sit back down. On that night, my fear of failure was confronted by that fierce motherly aspect, and my fear backed down.

I took my seat and tried again, her at my shoulder. And then I tried again because that time sounded as much like bird torture as the time before it. And again, and again, and again. It took another thirty minutes of really trying, of having no safe place to retreat to, of being stuck between a flute and a hardass, before the crux passage finally worked. Magically, my spasmodic fingers managed to function together and I made it through the bar of eighth notes and through to the finish. The only smile in the room bigger than mine was Mom’s.

Band and jazz band and orchestra ended up being extremely dependable and relatively easy A’s for me for the rest of my public school career. I was never exceptional, just a bit better than most, good enough for first flute but not enough to ever worry about a scholarship, and I was (sadly) okay with that. I learned to enjoy playing and being surrounded by girls even more. (A good embouchure is also useful for kissing.) All thanks to Mom and half an hour of not quitting.

But, as I said, it was a one-time lesson. I could have, should have, received that lesson many, many more times. But Mom got pretty busy with the boarders, and I was always too proud to ask or admit I needed it. So I coasted, and then floundered, and finally learned how to avoid challenges so as to avoid failure with an alacrity that bordered on evil genius.

It didn’t affect every part of my life, that aversion to risk, just the creative ones. Just the important ones. I did well in my chosen jobs, was successful when I went pack to school at 26 to re-educate following a motorcycle accident, and managed to get through most things looking like I sort of knew what I was doing. But I also didn’t really “complete” a lot of things. When the going got tough, I got going… the other way.

Through my thirties I was provided opportunities to learn lessons that I wish I’d learned in my teens. Somehow I managed to stumble into management positions, and where I was comfortable failing myself, I found I wasn’t comfortable at all failing the teams that depended on me. That sense of obligation or responsibility was the leverage my mind and heart needed to get over the hump and push through to completion, even when my legs wanted to go the other way.

Those lessons took a long time to learn though. I wrote the first draft of the prologue of the story I’m writing nearly fourteen years ago, got forty or so pages in, drew maps, and then abandoned it. I told myself it was just fantasy and not literary enough. I told myself that it was unrealistic to want to be a writer. I told myself that I was almost thirty and should start being a responsible adult. And they were all excuses.

At forty-three, I finally had enough confidence, frustration, angst, disillusionment, hope… whatever… to try again.

You know this part of the story if you’ve been reading along for a bit. (If not, search “life inversion” and catch up.) I quit again, but this time only the parts that were really bad for me – the corporate job, the consumerism, the stuff-accumulation, the pretending and pretension. I decided to put all my eggs in one basket, say “fuck it”, and write that goddamned novel I’d always said I was going to write.

I finished the bastard last Friday.

Well, not “finished” it in the sense that I’m ready to try to sell it just yet, but I finished a second draft. It’s close. There’s a bit of polishing, then the sharing with trusted and valued readers, then a final polish. But then, soon, only a couple months away now, I’ll be trying to find an agent.

When I typed the last word of the last chapter on Friday, it felt a bit like vindication. Not over anyone else. But over me. To me it felt like giving a big middle finger to the part of me that thought I’d never do it; to the voice that whispered in the dark that I was deluding myself; to the piece that was still convinced I was a fuck up. I felt like I was standing over that remnant, that vestigial quitter, on the field of battle, my foot on its corpse, sword in hand, screaming something primordial into the cold gloaming air. My own Barbaric Yawp.

It was how I’d felt, just that once as an eleven-year old, when Mom made me keep trying until I fucking got it, only better.

Some lessons, I suppose, take longer to learn than others. Mostly the important ones.

Epilogue: The mss is essentially done. Like I said, there’s a bit of polishing to do, but it’s pretty much complete at 180k words. I edited over 50k of them in the last month (my own sort-of NaNoWriMo), so thanks for hanging around while I took that break. Regular posts will now commence again. I’ll keep you updated.

P.S. I missed you all.

trust your friends

A brilliant friend of mine, Judy Clemet Wall, posted a beautiful blog earlier today chronicling the Ten Things She’d Do if she could. She’s a wonderful writer and just reading her list was (and is) inspiring. When you’re done here and have left a comment, I’d highly recommend popping over to Zebra Sounds ,checking it out and giving her a follow.

One of her ten things, a truly remarkable and beautiful thing, was this:

“I’d loan my eyes to some people I love so they could see how beautiful they are.”

I know. Fucking awesome, isn’t it?

That item informed a brief online conversation about wishing that we could actually do that; share in some fundamental, elemental way how much we appreciated certain people so that they could, in essence, see themselves as we see them, as we love them, as we appreciate them. It would be an inestimable gift to be able to express our respect and love that clearly, on demand, and shoot it out when it was most needed like a love missile.

No… dirty, dirty… not that kind of love missile. A deeply honest, positive regard smartbomb kind of missile.

And then I had this thought:

What if we tried seeing ourselves as others saw us once and a while, not assuming the worst (as is usually my inclination), but instead seeing the best? You know, actually believing the things that people say to encourage us instead of just brushing them off in some sort of ode to humility.

How many people do you know that have heard and ignored the same, consistent advice and encouragement from their friends and then, like a bolt out of a clear blue sky, finally get it when they hear the same advice from a therapist, or a counselor, or a book, or even on Oprah, ferchrissakes.

Yeah, you’re nodding your head now. I know. Me too. We’re way to willing to accept negative opinions from anywhere, and way to slow to accept positive ones from the people we trust most. Tell me how that makes sense.

This isn’t a self-affirmation thing. I’m not suggesting that you are a precious and unique snowflake. I’m not talking about flowery expressions of positive self-regard here. I’m not telling you to say nice things to yourself or apply the law of attraction. This isn’t about giving your self a hug or creating a self-realization mantra and saying it three times before your next job interview.

I just wonder what it would look like if we stopped once and a while, really stopped dead still, and then saw ourselves through the eyes of the people that care most for us. There’d be some honest, realistic critical observation in that view, sure, but I think we’d also be struck dumb. I think we’d have to just sit down and weep for the overwhelming joy of the love we’d feel. I think it would break us in the most complete and wonderful ways.

So here’s a thought exercise: Try to remember the last few compliments you’ve received from people you respect, admire, love and/or trust. Make them into a sentence about yourself. Like this:

“I am pretty, sensitive and I write like a motherfucker.” *

Or:

“I am strong, punctual and I work harder than anyone my friends know.” *

Or:

“I am creative, have great hands and am profoundly empathic.” *

Whatever…Do it. I dare ya.

And when you have your sentence of compliments, think about it. You don’t have to repeat it to yourself. Just think about it. Just stop… and think about it. Let it settle on you. Accept that your friends or family or boss actually think that about you, think you're pretty fucking wonderful in your own inimitable way. They sit alone sometimes and think, like Judy does, like you do about those you love, “I wish I could give them my eyes so they could see how beautiful they are.”

Thanks Judy. You’re amazing.

* These are not necessarily autobiographical in any way.

...one of those days...

Do you ever have one of those days? You know the kind....

One of those days when the overwhelming weight of the world just seems to be bearing all of its deep gravity well down on you? When all of the culpability of the species just seems to be unfucking avoidable and you have to own it, hold it to you at the same time that you're trying to tear it out of you?

One of those days when you can't resist to the urge to take on the sins of your race, your country, your gender, your species? When every story, every song, every image reminds you of the incredible fuck up this all is, all of it, in spite of the good things, because of the unmitigated horror of the bad?

When the black hole is so dense that it's hard out get out of bed, off of the floor, out the door? When the sunlight hurts and smiles feel like razorblades? When the thought of peace, the ephemeral unlikelihood of it, the whisper of its possibility and the truth of its goddamn improbability, reduces you to tears?

When you want to slap every child you see push another down, ram your car into every self-involved driver that didn't see the person they almost ran over, strangle every self-serving politician you watch lie, again and again and again, destroy every person that ever hit their spouse in anger, knowing the whole time that it's the wrong answer to every one of those situations and not caring?

Knowing that even if you could, the shame would just be worse afterward?

One of those days when you can't see the hope through the fear, or the love through the hate, or the intelligence through the ignorance? When bigotry seems to be the rule and tolerance – not even real acceptance, just tolerance – looks like it's about a million fucking light years away from being possible?

When laughter makes you want to cry, crying makes you want to scream, and honesty makes you want to smash every mirror in the world?

One of those days? Do you know the kind I'm talking about?

I'm having one.

Sometimes it's good to just sit in awe and fucking own it for a day.

S'okay though. It's just a day. Tomorrow's a new one, and things'll be better. It's just one day.

Bloggers Unite - Women's Equality Day

It was about ten years ago that I had a sudden and, in hindsight, long-overdue realization: The world I lived in as a white, middle-classed male was dramatically different than the world my female friends lived in.

A friend described to me what it was like to walk in a parking lot at night; how she had to be careful to park in the light and as close to a door as possible; how every van parked beside her car made the world seem a less secure place; how she walked with her keys protruding from her fists just in case.

It was such a simple description of how our worlds were different. I never thought about cars or vans or where I parked my car, never considered where the lights were or how far I was from a door. Once the blinders were lifted by grace of her gentle clarification I found myself in a different reality.

It was a profound moment of empathy, and one I am ashamed to say I had to be led to. I've never looked at a parking lot, among many other things, the same way again.

Bloggers Unite recognizes this day, August 26, as Women's Equality Day, in honour of the United States of America's adoption of its 19th Amendment to the US Constitution in 1920. It was in that year that the US provided their female citizens the right to vote, 57 years after Sweden started the ball rolling, 51 after England, 27 after New Zealand provided full voting rights to all women. The domino affect would require most of the twentieth century to work itself out. Switzerland, for the record, was a notable hold out, waiting until 1971 to grant women full voting rights under their law.

To me, the timeline and my friend's story both highlight how great a gulf there is between the laws we make and the ethics and morality we practice. In Canada, where I live, women have been considered full 'persons' and equal under the law since 1950 when full sufferage was granted.

Only sixty years ago... My mother was ten when her mother finally became a full person under the law.

I find that fact hard to process.

The international recognition of suffrage is a great accomplishment, without a doubt. But the equality our laws provide is not always mirrored in the real world. Suffrage, as huge a step as it was, is only one part of creating any real equality.

Women, on average, are still paid less than men, are still threatened and abused, are still mistreated or ignored by courts.

Women still have to be aware of vans parked beside their cars where men probably don't even notice them.

We've come a long way, but the road is only half traveled. We're nowhere near 'there' yet.

So, by all means, we should take a moment and recognize where we've come from and how much has been accomplished. But when we've caught our breath and shared a toast, perhaps remembered the brave women who have paid enormous prices to get us this far, when we've done these things it will be time to make sure our boots are tied tightly so we can start the walk again.

There's a long way to go yet.

August 26th is Bloggers Unite's Women's Equality Day.

“Think not forever of yourselves, O Chiefs, nor of your own generation. Think of continuing generations of our families, think of our grandchildren and of those yet unborn, whose faces are coming from beneath the ground.” Peacemaker, founder of the Iroquois Confederacy, (ca. 1000 AD)

(Like the For Gaza post on July 9, this post is in support of Bloggers Unite, a blogger cooperative in support of several blog-worthy subjects throughout the year. Today’s post is specifically in support of International Youth Day, August 12, 2010.)

I’m a 43-year old guy with no kids of my own. Raised as an adopted child in what ended up being a broken home, and with a somewhat less-than-mainstream perspective, I grew up a little sour on the idea of having kids. I saw an exploding global population that didn’t need any extra human units, was afraid of doing to children some of what I’d experienced, and just never felt that overwhelming urge to pass on my genes.

I have, however, tried to find my own ways to influence generations subsequent to my own over the years. I’ve coached hockey, worked with ‘at-risk’ children in foster care and their own broken homes, volunteered with youth and even now, while I’m admittedly self-focused on completing the novel that is at the foundation of my life-inversion, I volunteer at a local climbing gym working with birthday and school groups. I’m also fortunate to be friends with the son of a close friend, a 15-year old young man I met 4 years ago with whom I share a love of goaltending.

My close friend was courageous enough to send that young friend out for a few days visit last week. I was honored enough back in the day when she picked me to be a ‘positive influence’, more honored when he decided to gift me his friendship, and floored that the friendship is still of any interest to him. I consider it a responsibility, this opportunity to have even a small say into the life of an intelligent, caring, funny and talented 15-year old. That close friend has done a great job of parenting herself (leaving me wondering what there is for me to contribute), but I’ve appreciated the chance to be a friend, to help him with his goaltending (in whatever small way I can do that), to talk about his education and hopes and dreams, and even discuss something else we both seem to appreciate – writing fiction. We hung out, talked about all of the above and I spent an afternoon introducing him to another love of mine – climbing. There was no pressure, just being friends. I hope that he enjoyed it as much as I did.

Because my head works in a certain way, I was and am reminded in such moments that we live in a world that needs help and that he and his peers will the ones to whom falls most of the responsibility to try to fix things. There are things we can, should and must do now, today, but most of the real solutions are over my temporal horizon, somewhere wonderful beyond my allotted 80 to 100 or so years. Seeing a real solution to problems like inequality, racism, carbon emissions, ecological degradation, political corruption, corporate and social greed, war, etcetera, etcetera, won’t come in my lifetime.

Don’t get me wrong - we need to start actually taking the steps to start the change that needs to take place now, but it’s going to take our generation and the next, and probably the next after that for any fundamental change to truly happen.

So yeah, obviously, I think our youth are pretty important.

They are smarter than we are, more open to change, less aware of cultural and racial differences and more aware of the things that we have in common. They think our greed and bigotry are stupid and foolish. They have a healthy skepticism that will serve them well if they can also remain hopeful. They have a hatred of lies and love of truth that is inspiring.

The truth that they embrace imperils our generation’s commitment to greed and avarice. Their truth scares the shit out of us, and we’re far better at denial than change. They’re uneasy with the complacency and self-centeredness that typifies our generation. They’re interested in solutions and critical thought. For as long as our species has been passing wisdom from one generation to another, we’ve been encouraging the next generation to not make the same mistakes as we did, and to consider the generations that will come after them as they make choices. It’s a concept that, frankly, our species gives a lot of lip service to, but generally fails to honor. But I remain hopeful.

The other day a friend asked her Facebook universe how it is we might imagine raising our children so that they will think self-critically and be more empathic than our generation is proving to be and more than the one before us was. The conversation ended up in a place where the concept of generational solutions seemed more viable and rational than any unrealistic hope that we might affect profound change within our own generation. Not that anyone felt that abdicating responsibility to the next generation was appropriate, but that the job was too big for the few that see it, and that the change would have to be manifested in a new generation of empowered and educated humans. Our realization was that we have to do all that we can now, but that too many people are too invested in denial, in simply not seeing the truth, to ‘get there’ in one generation. So while we have to ‘do’ now, we need to pragmatically focus on the next generation and actually encourage a profound generation gap that creates a better species.

They have some advantages, the ‘next generation’: Our technological age of global connectedness has taught them, far better than we seem to have learned, that it’s a small planet. They know that the other side of the world is part of their world. Our social myopathy and ecological hubris seems ignorant and illogical to them. They have grown up with friends from around the world, from different religions and cultures and socio-economic circumstances, and they don’t recognize our small-mindedness as viable anymore.

My young friend is certainly this way. He’s still young, but his heart and mind are already miles ahead of where I was at his age. He understands the importance of an absence of borders; of equal opportunities for all; of the possibilities inherent in inclusion.

Honestly, I have a fear that we will fail them completely and leave them no further ahead in terms of vision than we are, and with a deeper hole to dig the species out of. I fight it, but it’s there. I have no fear of what they can do though. They’re the hope that keeps me young.

International Youth Day is August 12. Pass something positive forward.

(UPDATE: While writing this, I listened to an interview with economist and author Jeremy Rifkin on CBC 1. His latest book, The Empathic Civilization – the Race to Global Consciousness in a World in Crisis, recognizes the requirement for a generational shift. He suggests that the fundamental shift that has to occur will require a recognition that the age of enlightenment concepts of extreme individualism, competition and social Darwinism are leading us to economic and social bankruptcy; that only a society that embraces the need to cooperate and recognize our inter-connectedness – that embraces empathy – will be able to survive the challenges that currently face the global society. Just for reference…)

It is the mark of an educated mind to be able to entertain a thought without accepting it. Aristotle

I was talking with a friend today about how we ingest media these days, and specifically, how critically we take in the feeds that we receive from fourth and fifth estates. We both agreed that our suspicion of the 'party line' had increased exponentially over the last while with the effect for both of us that we ask very specific questions whenever we hear 'news', and pretty much regardless of the source. We now wonder what it is we're not supposed to be looking at when we see the disingenuous stories that seem to dominate the headlines, or at least the biases that dominate the way those headlines are reported.

We grow up (or perhaps grew up – my smart, young friends seem to be suspicious far more naturally these days) thinking that the news we receive through the mainstream sources are credible and unbiased by default. These are, after all, the professionals – the epitome of journalism and, ostensibly journalistic integrity. I grew up in the then-present mythos of Woodward and Bernstein, the Pentagon-Papers, war-journalists embedded in Viet-Nam, before the movies but just after the breaking news, when journalism was held up as the last great defense against corruption.

I don't feel that way now. Maybe (probably) I just grew up a bit. I've grown to believe that cynicism is a natural response to seeing the world the way it is. Psychologists routinely report that depression is statistically linked to a more accurate perception of the world around us, the world as it truly is. Being hopeful, resisting an unadulterated strain of that disillusioned perspective, requires either denial of the truth or a stubborn choice; a refusal to give up on what could be. Denial shouldn't be a viable option anymore, so that leaves making daily choices. Hard ones.

This isn't even about which side we take. I'm a firm believer in passionate disagreement and debate. I entertain dreams of that kind of respectful yet strong discussion occurring here one day, comments from honest and open people on both sides of an argument. I wouldn't for a second suggest that I'm detached or completely objective in the perspectives that I hold, but I hope that my opinions (because that's all they are) at least show that I've taken the time to investigate and think through both sides of an argument. My conclusions usually end up in relatively the same place: perhaps an inevitable destination because of my biases, or perhaps because of the logical result of the investigation – most likely (hopefully) at least a bit of both.

But we shouldn't be afraid to ask the questions. I've used the Descartes quote before: 'If you would be a real seeker after truth, it is necessary that at least once in your life you doubt all things.' This should be - has to be - the attitude that we take when looking at the world around us. So much of the world that we are presented with through the media, by our politicians and social leaders, is presented through a biased and manipulative lens, that we have to doubt what we see. Have to.

To not do so is to deny the simple truth that we all create our perceptions of the world through our own, auto-biographical narratives – that we are constantly being tempted to see the world only through the lens that we find most comfortable; the one that feels safest. We seek others that think like us, talk like us, are passionate about topics like us. It's so comforting to surround ourselves in group-think cocoons so that we never have to face the possibility that our perspective is wrong. Being committed (and continually renewing that commitment) to questioning what we see and how we choose to see it is part of our responsibility as citizens.

It's not easy, especially when we find ourselves in a comfortable place, that place where we feel at home and accepted and amongst friends. Ironically, that's when a questioning, self-cynical perspective is the most important. It's at the exact moment when we feel safe and included that we need to ask ourselves the hardest questions: What are my prejudices here and now? What is this place of apparent comfort encouraging me to not see? What biases are my deeply held beliefs fostering in me? How is my perspective encouraging me to dehumanize people who don't agree with me? Am I in danger of becoming that which I hate?

That kind of soul-searching and the constant state of imbalance it can create can be very disorienting, but it's honest. When we think that we're standing on concrete is when we should be most concerned. The world is made of sand, constantly shifting and never stable. Simply recognizing our inclination to try to delude ourselves into thinking it's solid when it isn't is an enormous challenge.

Our responsibility as citizens, if we care about ever evolving past war and greed and the creation of arbitrary differentiations between 'us' and 'the other', is to get comfortable with being off balance; with choosing to stay off balance in so much as we are constantly re-evaluating our beliefs and assumptions, constantly trying to see past ourselves.

It's a hard place to live, but nobody ever said that anything worth while was easy.

‘How hard it is, sometimes, to trust the evidence of one's senses! How reluctantly the mind consents to reality.’ Norman Douglas ‘Reality is merely an illusion, albeit a very persistent one.’ Albert Einstein (attributed)

Although this blog’s readership is small, a question that I have been asked by one of you two fine folk regards why, when the more inspirational entries are so positive and generally ‘feel good’, I consistently go back to darker and less optimistic themes?

Here is the truth of it: I do not have an overly optimistic perspective on the world we currently live in.  People will point to the accomplishments of the human species and suggest that we are marvelous, creatures of amazing ingenuity and persistence, capable of exploring and exploiting the depths and resources of our planet, able by our science, math and technology to take fledgling steps towards exploring the solar system around us physically and the universe beyond by grace of our craftsmanship and expertise. We are, by that argument, miraculous healers of the sick by evidence of the medical marvels we have wrought, and have devised complex socio-economic matrices that allow us to live in a relative state of stability in spite of the fact that we are so many on this little blue marble floating around in space.

I consider these parlor tricks. All of our accomplishments are a minor misdirection compared with what we have the potential of actually accomplishing as individuals and as a species. We are chronic underachievers distracted by a myriad of shiny objects and the ephemeral and illusory concepts of security and comfort.

So perhaps you will understand that, while I want to continually appeal to my (our) better natures, I am also motivated to address all of my (our) self-delusions and discern the reality beneath the glossy top coat that we focus on most of the time; to sweep away the distractions and get down to the reality that they camouflage.

And so I chose two quotes today because I think that, together, they form a nice concept in line with how I see the world, two parts pessimistic pragmatist and one part hopeful idealist.

Mr. Douglas rhetorically points out a simple truth: That we are inclined to deny that which we would prefer not to know; that we live in a world and by a system that is more than not perfect – it is broken. The evidence is all around us, and there are many who try to point it out to us daily, but we prefer not to hear that truth. I’m not suggesting the media here, or even most of mainstream science, and most assuredly not our political leaders, but there are some if we’re willing to look a bit, read the right books, and watch an occasional dissident documentary. Yet, for the most part, we don’t.

That’s why I tend to return to less positive themes regularly – to not do so is to deny reality. To focus on building our little cocoons of comfort, we have to actively repress the truth around us, selfishly concentrating on ‘us’ and ‘ours’, happily abdicating our power and responsibility to the less fortunate and the abject horror that constitutes most of the world around us. Not next door or around the corner perhaps, but just around the globe a bit, or even just a little closer to downtown than we usually like to look at.

That’s the reality of the world we live in. In Mr. Achebe’s words, things fall apart. The cracks get bigger and massive numbers of human lives are allowed to fall through, but we chose to buy the infotainment media lines that say, ‘Hey, it’s not perfect, but life is generally pretty good as long as we can keep the terrorists at bay and learn to survive the now-perpetual state of pandemic that the earth will be in forever and have a nice house and get our kids into good schools and buy that new car and big screen TV.’ We owe it to ourselves to be honest about these things, to face up to the truth of the ‘now’.

And then there’s Mr. Einstein with his big, revolutionary brain, cutting way past the bullshit to uncover, in fewer words and cleaner prose, the higher reality of the situation. Yes, things may fall apart; the ‘now’ may be, in truth, dismal, but it simply doesn’t have to be that way. At all.

That part of me that refuses to lie down for reality is reminded constantly that we are an amazing species; that our ability to develop new tools, greater technologies and more profound and sublime systems of empathy and compassion is barely scratched; that there are those among us who have and are capable of making sacrifices and showing the dedication required to live altruistically in service to our fellow man; and that their level of sacrifice has only been necessary because they are so few – if they were more, not even a majority of humans, but simply a significant ‘more’, a ‘we’ instead of a ‘them’, then the ability to radically change the ways and means of our selfish existence as a species would not only be within reach, e would find that it’s practically poking us in the ribs, slapping us on the face trying to get our attention.

We could end world hunger and poverty completely by spending the combined military budgets of the world for one year in a concerted effort to end inequality (but that’s not very profitable). We could end our subservience to petro chemicals completely inside of a generation if we actually utilized the extent of our available resources and technology and research and development budgets to their real potential (but that wouldn’t be very profitable either).

And most important, most significant, we could, each of us, live more generous, empathic and compassionate lives if we just chose to, just turned off the bullshit on TV and made a choice to give as much as we get, to share as much as we take: To live unselfish lives.

This blog is still about what’s going on in my head, so please understand, if the language seems to suggest that I am pointing fingers, know that I do so standing in front of a mirror. I am the first person I chose to accuse of not living up to our intrinsic potential. Like that beautiful quote I’ve blogged about by Augusten Burroughs, “I myself am made entirely of flaws, stitched together with good intentions.” It always starts with our selves.

I don’t foresee a specific day yet when I’ll feel comfortable elucidating on my own thoughts and can leave the quotes behind – I am still inspired by the words that better folk than me have spoken – but I am hopeful and motivated by the thought that one day I might get there. In the meantime I’ll keep Google-ing and spouting off about what the words of my betters have meant to me; how they have, perhaps, in some small way, helped me choose reality over illusion, altruism over self-interest.

And at the very least I’ll continue to know that I’m helping a couple insomniacs get their well-deserved rest at night…

(Yes, I know: The 500 word barrier is being broken more and more often. My apologies, too bad, and I've amened the disclaimer to reflect my choice to not submit to my own tyranny. J)

"Where is there dignity unless there is honesty?" Cicero (106 BC - 43 BC)

The statement is pretty clear and straight forward. No argument made by Cicero here in support of his assertion – he makes this statement as if it is a self-evident truth, one I happen to agree with and that most people would have a hard time arguing against. Honesty, after all, is a value and virtue that we still hold aloft in principal if not in practice.

To me though, that our culture still does praise the virtues of honesty seems a bit hypocritical. We live in the age of persuasion, after all, when the ability to manipulate opinion, coerce agreement, ‘win friends and influence people’, and make a hard sale seem to be qualities that we praise above the more ‘traditional’ virtues. 

I’d go so far as to say that dishonesty is the more valued attribute in our day and age, provided you can be profitably dishonest and not get caught. We still love to hang the dishonest villain out to dry if they get themselves caught, but while they are raking in profits or basking in the limelight, we praise that kind of ambition and drive.

By Cicero’s standard there’s an awful lot of undignified behavior today, just as there was in his time, but also like in Cicero’s time, we are the only species on the face of the planet that can consciously aspire to refute dishonesty, to stand apart from the kind of win-at-all-costs and avoid-responsibility mentality that makes it possible to rationalize dishonesty as a legitimate choice of action.

Honesty pays the kind of dividends that dishonest dealings can never provide: honest and humble pride, a sense of honor and the aspiration of nobility of character. Old fashioned concepts perhaps, but the kind that can still apply in a modern and changing world if we make the choice to prioritize them. What kind of world would we be able to make for ourselves if enough people chose honesty and dignity, not as replacements for profitability and success, but as the measure of them?