“Originality and individuality, in a trained mind, not corporate compliance will be essential to spiritual survival as Homo sapiens sapiens. For we are drifting, or being seduced, into another species: Homo inanis materialis.”

– Alan Garner, The Voice That Thunders

__________

“Even when you’ve paid enough
Been pulled apart
Or been held up
Every single memory of
The good or bad, faces of love
Don’t lose any sleep tonight
I’m sure everything will end up alright
You may win or lose

But to be yourself is all that you can do
To be yourself is all that you can do”

– Audioslave, Be Yourself

_________

As individuals we can make the world better.

Starting with our own microcosms.

If we can educate ourselves on our own originality then, perhaps, we can share it with the world.

Computers and AI do a better job of summarising and finding logical solutions and answers to our questions.

Perhaps our strategy should be illogical in a deeply personal way.

What grabs my attention?

Where does my unknowable mind take me?

What paths am I compelled to follow?

But it is hard not to worry about other’s perceptions of us.

The sensitive ego wants safety and protection.

Computers do not worry about perception.

How can I lean into my own interests and compulsions?

How can I feel less fear?

How can I become more human?

How can I become more valuable to other humans?

Where is this leading me?

Does it need a logical end?

Or is this merely the beginning of something else…

“It’s crucial to have a setup, so that, at any given moment, when you get an idea, you have the place and the tools to make it happen. If you don’t have a setup, there are many times when you get the inspiration, the idea, but you have no tools, no place to put it together. And the idea just sits there and festers. Over time, it will go away. You didn’t fulfill it—and that’s just a heartache.”

– David Lynch, Catching the Big Fish

__________

“The second condition: a fairly private space. In a house, a room, even a small one, where you can be with your book, where you can have that dialogue without anyone else in the room.”

– George Steiner, A Long Saturday

__________

Freedom.

Privacy.

Creativity.

A whole world in the small patch of desk on which I sit.

No more, no less.

I have such fantasies about having my own study: a desk with books and papers. A place in which to leave everything in specific disarray.

This is not realistic. It’s better to nurturer the dream through practice in this mobile creating space.

A small grab bag with everything I need. More often than not my writing equipment is simply my iPhone.

There is a crucial advantage I have found with writing on my iPhone: editing.

It’s low stakes. No formal pressure.

Editing on the fly. Dipping in and out.

Not a big pressure to get everything figured out all at once. 

Using snatches of time I can write.

No muses need be summoned.

None of this is created in declared writing time.

There’s no agenda and no external expectations.

It’s not precious time. In fact it is, but there is no need to broadcast that fact to the outside world.

Privacy is created within the space between the eye and the page or screen.

A superpower of attention, if you will.

A modest ability to create on the fly.

“You say you are a nameless man. You are not to your wife and to your child. You will not long remain so to your immediate colleagues if you can answer their simple questions when they come into your office. You are not nameless to me. Do not remain nameless to yourself—it is too sad a way to be. Know your place in the world and evaluate yourself fairly, not in terms of the naïve ideals of your own youth, nor in terms of what you erroneously imagine your teacher’s ideals are.”

– Richard Feynman, Letter to Koichi Mano, quoted in The Writer Who Stayed by William Zinsser

__________

“I discovered that if you really keep your eye peeled to it and your ears open, if you really pay attention to it, even such a limited and limiting life as the one I was living on Rupert Mountain opened up onto extraordinary vistas. Taking your children to school and kissing your wife goodbye. Eating lunch with a friend. Trying to do a decent day’s work. Hearing the rain patter against the window. There is no event so commonplace but that God is present within it, always hiddenly, always leaving you room to recognize him or not to recognize him, but all the more fascinatingly because of that, all the more compellingly and hauntingly…. If I were called upon to state in a few words the essence of everything I was trying to say both as a novelist and as a preacher, it would be something like this: Listen to your life. See it for the fathomless mystery that it is. In the boredom and pain of it no less than in the excitement and gladness: touch, taste, smell your way to the holy and hidden heart of it because in the last analysis all moments are key moments, and life itself is grace.”

– Frederick Buechner, Now and Then

__________

It’s been a couple of years since I gave up social media.

I have discovered more space to be myself

In turn, there is less opportunity for negative comparison with others.

I am more focused on the books I read.

I simply read more books.

And in books, I feel the authors want the best for me.

A book is like a conversation with a friend.

A social media post, a boast from someone in a noisy bar.

Books do not demand an immediate response.

Unless a quote speaks directly to something deep inside. Or converses with another author.

Like today.

Twenty four hours.

Two different books.

One message.

Gratitude for who I am.

Where I am.

Not who I think I should be.

“There is no right food and no wrong food; the food must only meet the appetite, the appetite find its kind of food.”

– James Hillman, The Soul’s Code

__________

“One of my great joys is going on a book-hunt. Finding a rare book I desperately want after a long search, acquiring it and carrying it home with me, is a symbolic equivalent of a hunt for prey.”

– Desmond Morris, The Nature of Happiness

__________

My eyes are bigger than my stomach.

I buy more books than I can read. But they are not perishable.

Unlike an overstocked fridge they can provide sustenance indefinitely.

Good ideas never grow stale.

I can gorge anytime.

“Finishing actions clears the mind as much as it clears the plate. An action once finished does not need attention or memory. An unfinished action still needs both to be completed. An accumulation of unfinished actions creates a mental clutter and a brain drain. Whether we possess the kind of mind that deals with that clutter easily or not, the cataloguing and prioritization of those remaining actions demands mental energy that could be spent elsewhere.”

– Dan Charnas, Work Clean

__________

“You are not making this commitment to prove something to others, to hear their applause or to compete with someone else – the only competition is with yourself and the ultimate commitment is to yourself.”

– John Peck, How to Add Adventure to Your Life

__________

These quotes and thoughts have been rattling in my mind since August, when this modest enterprise of mine was halted.

I did not stop writing in any grand way. There were no hystronics.

I merely ceased driving myself to the keypad every day.

Without the daily commitment there was nothing.

The interest and compulsion vanished without the demands of the schedule.

I have recommited in order to provide for myself the freedom to create.

An idea recorded here is one less piece of clutter on my mind.

I feel happier already, reconnecting with my creative companion, conducting conversations with quotations.

“The spiritual aspect of valor is evidenced by composure—calm presence of mind. Tranquility is courage in repose. It is a statical manifestation of valor, as daring deeds are a dynamical. A truly brave man is ever serene; he is never taken by surprise; nothing ruffles the equanimity of his spirit. In the heat of battle he remains cool; in the midst of catastrophes he keeps level his mind. Earthquakes do not shake him, he laughs at storms. We admire him as truly great, who, in the menacing presence of danger or death, retains his self-possession;”

– Inazo Nitobe, Bushido

__________

“There is no deed in this life so impossible that you cannot do it. Your whole life should be lived as an heroic deed. Every time you wake up and ask yourself, “What good things am I going to do today?” remember that, when the sun goes down at sunset, it will take a part of your life with it.”

– Leo Tolstoy, A Calendar of Wisdom

__________

It’s nice to fantasise about being a strong, calm, self assured presence in the world.

But getting older, it’s easier to separate wishful thinking from reality.

I know enough about myself to make some declarative statements.

I will never be a warrior monk.

I am not heroic.

I struggle to live in a state of self-possession.

I do not live out daily deeds. Most days it’s enough to simply be.

I do wish I could be a little braver. Somewhat less prone to procrastination.

However I am never going to evolve into a gung-ho persona.

Not in this lifetime. I have to work with the systems I was born with.

However I can make some tweaks and adjustments.

I can be an an active reader: curious in my self directed studies.

I can learn from others.

There is a lot to be said for inspiration. Even if it does not lead to participation.

Acceptance of my unheroic self does provide me with a modest level of tranquility.

I am not great.

That’s Ok.

Who truly is?

“What is it that I really like? Following that is a long process of self-excavation from being buried by what you’ve been told you should like.”

– Jon Hassell, quoted in https://thequietus.com/interviews/jon-hassell/

__________

“At that time I had a tutor named Leonidas. It was this man’s habit, as a means of ‘thickening my bark’, to wake me an hour before dawn and march me down to the river, where I must strip and plunge in, in all weathers. I hated this. The Loudias at Pella is bone-numbing even in summer; in winter its depth of cold is indescribable. I tried every trick to duck these dousings. Eventually it came to me that, rather than endure them beneath compulsion, which rendered them doubly abhorrent, I would elect to do them on my own. I began arising before my tutor, getting the chore over with while he lay yet in bed. Leonidas was much gratified by this evolution of my character, while, for my own part, the ordeal had been rendered tolerable, now that I could tell myself it was my own idea.”

– Steven Pressfield, The Virtues of War

__________

In my experience of reality there is no watertight, perfect, sealed experience or theory to the meaning of life.

When I hold up my worldviews to the light they are full of holes.

But the holes are beautiful, because it’s in the mystery where I can wonder and use my imagination to fill in the gaps.

My meaning and motivation is bespoke. It is one of the great realisations of my life that I am supposed to seek out meaning for myself.

No one else is responsible for it’s delivery.

I’m yet to find it. I’m still searching for the meaning of life. Still searching for the best way to spend my days.

But I know it is my decision to seek meaning.

I am not dismayed by the indifference of the universe.

I think the search might just be the meaning I am seeking.

What an experience: to seek, discover and refine my holey vision.

I like this very much.

“You waste years by not being able to waste hours.”

– Amos Tversky

__________

“With businessmen, time is money; with academics, money is time.”

– Lawrence Rosen, quoted in Journeys of the Mind by Peter Brown

__________

I don’t want to hustle to become a millionaire.

I’m not prepared to work 80 hour weeks creating my own company.

I don’t measure success by wealth.

That’s just as well. I’d have to judge myself a failure.

For me time spent amongst words is the best time in the world.

Reading. Thinking. Writing.

It is a constant struggle to create time to create.

The time available is not plentiful.

It’s not measured in large slabs of time. More like crumbs, that if attentively gathered, make a whole.

When you’re on a holiday
You can’t find the words to say
All the things that come to you
And I wanna feel it too

On an island in the sun
We’ll be playing and having fun
And it makes me feel so fine
I can’t control my brain

– Weezer, Island in the Sun

__________

“A persona takes energy. I just needed a rest. Not to be anything in relation to anyone else.”

– Mike Nichols, quoted in, Mike Nichols: A Life by Mark Harris

__________

I’m going on holiday.

I don’t know how my brain will react and I’m not sure if I’ll find the words to write here every day.

It’s good to have a rest. I’m not going to pretend to be a writer for a week and see how I feel.

I’ll stare at the sea for a bit. Explore. Experience.

I’ll be back soon…

“Go, go, go, go, go, go
Go shorty, it’s your birthday
We gonna party like it’s your birthday
We gonna sip Bacardi like it’s your birthday
And you know we don’t give a fuck it’s not your birthday.”

– 50 Cent, In Da Club

__________

“It’s my party, and I’ll cry if I want to
Cry if I want to, cry if I want to
You would cry too if it happened to you.”

– Lesley Gore, It’s My Party

__________

The space between hedonism and despair. The pendulum can swiftly swing from one to another on a birthday.

Today happens to be mine.

How I feel today, truly, I’d rather keep to myself.

If any gift can suffice, I give myself the space to play the spectrum of emotions in private.

But whatever the ratios, I’m certain to experience the extremes of emotions. I’m grateful.

Experience means I am alive to celebrate and enjoy another year. The greatest of gifts.