“Between the ages of twenty and forty we are engaged in the process of discovering who we are, which involves learning the difference between accidental limitations which it is our duty to outgrow and the necessary limitations of our nature beyond which we cannot trespass with impunity. Few of us can learn this without making mistakes, without trying to become a little more of a universal man than we are permitted to be. It is during this period that a writer can most easily be led astray by another writer or by some ideology. When someone between twenty and forty says, apropos of a work of art, “I know what I like,” he is really saying “I have no taste of my own but accept the taste of my cultural milieu,” because, between twenty and forty, the surest sign that a man has a genuine taste of his own is that he is uncertain of it. After forty, if we have not lost our authentic selves altogether, pleasure can again become what it was when we were children, the proper guide to what we should read.”

W. H. Auden, The Dyer’s Hand

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“You will be surprised how much your ideas improve as you grow older. The ability to draw is not the only ability which improves with time. The ability to create ideas improves as you yourself mature.”

Charles M. Schulz, My Life With Charlie Brown

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It’s a relief not to pretend: to have total disinterest in impressing others.

The greatest satisfaction of being 40 is the focus on getting closer to me.

I kinda know what I like now. That means the rest of the universe of noise can just fall away as I gather around me what is truly interesting.

By saying no to most of what is being made, published, marketed, sold, spoken, sung, suggested and shouted I can turn to the production of my own ideas.

This has not abated my curiosity. Rather, I am careful to curate what passes my way and have greater confidence in seeking out new threads to pull.

I am starting to think of this as consuming with intention. It is not switching on the TV or booting up social media to step straight into browse mode.

It’s more of a long amble, where I stop and look at what catches my eye.

I curate at walking pace rather than in hyperspace.

I might let most of the world pass me by, but I am meticulous in paying attention to and recording my own streaming subconscious.

I am building my own world of ideas.

I do not dine alone. Every day, two illustrious guests join me.

I like the idea of Wystan Auden and Charles Schultz sitting at my kitchen table eating, drinking and sharing stories.

As the host I’d be content to sit back and smile. Trying not to interrupt as they converse, I would bask in the brightness of their ideas.

Thank god for books.

Auden and Schultz are both immortal: they can be summoned with the simple turning of the page.

“Our imaginations—whether driven by fiction or our own thoughts—have the same power as real experiences when it comes to rewiring our brains. You already know a dramatic experience in the real world can instantly rewire your brain to make you forever fear or love something that reminds you of that experience. But imagination—including reframing—can also rewire your brain over time. You simply need to focus and repeat the reframe in your head long enough for the hack to work.”

– Scott Adams, Reframe Your Brain

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“Imagination is the voice of daring. If there is anything God-like about God, it is that. He dared to imagine everything.”

– Henry Miller, Sexus, quoted in Writing From the Inside Out by Dennis Palumbo

__________

Reading a wide range of books is akin to seeking several quotes for a job.

I want to ensure good work at a fair price.

The job? A rewiring job – the creation of my self, my place in the world, my imagination fortified.

It’s a big job that will require several subcontractors.

Who do I allow to be the architect of this project?

If someone is religious, perhaps that job is taken by a god or a religious book

Others may look for a guru – that one person who seemingly has all the answers to their problems.

But I have chosen the messy self construction route.

I am trying to figure out the job as I go.

I consult various guides and how-tos, but ultimately, this building has my intials on the plans.

It is hard work doing it myself. Surely it would be easier if I had someone else to do my thinking for me?

But I have the satisfaction of seeing my handiwork.

I can, crucially, wield a sledgehammer if I need a do over.

Sometimes that is the easiest and most satisfying job.

Books are my guides. I am auto didactic, I learn best with self directed study.

One book leads to me the next. Often they concur with my worldview, others change my mind.

What I have is autonomy in learning. I take the raw materials of others to mix in my imagination and create new ideas.

“Think it not enough to furnish this Store-house of the Mind with good Thoughts, but lay them up there in Order, digested or ranged under proper Subjects or Classes. That whatever Subject you have Occasion to think or talk upon you may have recourse immediately to a good Thought, which you heretofore laid up there under that Subject. So that the very Mention of the Subject may bring the Thought to hand; by which means you will carry a regular Common Place-Book in your Memory.”

John Mason (written in 1745), as quoted in Where Good Ideas Come From by Steven Johnson

__________

“I had already figured out the core lesson of being a journalist—read before you write.”

– Seymour Hersh, Reporter: A Memoir

__________

I am grateful that I do not need to create my own individual systems for collecting and storing interesting ideas.

All my reading (via Kindle) passes through the filter of Readwise.

All my highlights are captured, stored and are automatically organised and searchable.

I don’t have to lift a finger. Well one finger, to tap on the search bar.

I simply read, highlight, annotate. Readwise takes care of all the admin.

A beautiful system.

Thankyou Readwise for automatically making me a super organised reader.

How many hours has this saved me?

Or a more important question is: would I even bother to organise my notes without Readwise?

The evidence of a lifetime of sparsely used notebooks says no.

So this one app has transformed me from a prolific, yet disorganised, reader into a super organised reader with access to over 10,000 (and counting!) ideas I have found in books.

My own private coomonplace book, library, encyclopaedia.

This post was made possible by Readwise making instantly available my highlight of the opening quote found in Steven Johnson’s excellent book.

I read so that I can write.

Sometimes I need a little help remembering what I have read.

All writing is my own.

“Every five-page scene I write I try to cut to four, every fourpage scene to three, every three to two… tighter is better always.

A screenplay functions as a blueprint, engineering report, and rendering all at the same time. It must work for the director, the producer, the actors AND the financier.

That’s the challenge.

– Ron Shelton, in Riding the Alligator by Pen Densham

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“It would be a writing course. Every assignment would be delivered in five versions: A three page version, a one page version, a three paragraph version, a one paragraph version, and a one sentence version.

I don’t care about the topic. I care about the editing. I care about the constant refinement and compression. I care about taking three pages and turning it one page. Then from one page into three paragraphs. Then from three paragraphs into one paragraph. And finally, from one paragraph into one perfectly distilled sentence.

Each step requires asking “What’s really important?” That’s the most important question you can ask yourself about anything. The class would really be about answering that very question at each step of the way. Whittling it all down until all that’s left is the point.”

– Jason Fried, The Writing Class I’d Like to Teach

__________

Killing my darlings.

It’s energising.

I’m showing the universe that I do not need to cling to the past.

I am proving with every edit my confidence to create more in the future.

I do not need to hoard words.

I can go out colllecting more sentences.

If I worry that I’m wasting words by deleting them then I am signalling to myself that what I have written is the best that I can do.

I prefer to think that what I write next will be more interesting.

I edit the past. Make my point, then move on.

“I know myself well enough to know that whatever happens, it won’t be my excesses I’ll regret, it’ll be the things I held myself back from doing. In all my life I’ve never yet given a present so lavish, or made a gesture so expansive, or indulged a pleasure so recklessly that I regretted it later. Whereas there are so many things I look back on now and think: That was one of the high points, that moment will never come again, why did I hold back?”

– Jordan Mechner, The Making of Prince of Persia

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“I remember
10 years ago in Hollywood
We did some good
And we did some real bad stuff
But the Butt-hole Surfers said
It’s better to regret something you did
Than something you didn’t do”

– Red Hot Chili Peppers, Deep Kick

__________

The regrets of omission always feel worse.

It’s because we lost something.

An opportunity, or a connection.

Psychologists say that we experience a loss greater than a gain.

By doing something we later regret we still gain the experience itself, which can be something to learn from.

By not doing something, there is no learning except, perhaps, of our own timidity.

Easier said than done. And of course, far easier in retrospect.

We never know what we choose to do will be a regret, or one of life’s singular experiences.

The only way of knowing is to do.

“The pattern of the thing precedes the thing. I fill in the gaps of the crossword at any spot I happen to choose. These bits I write on index cards until the novel is done. My schedule is flexible, but I am rather particular about my instruments: lined Bristol cards and well sharpened, not too hard, pencils capped with erasers.”

– Vladimir Nabokov, The Art of Fiction No. 40, The Paris Review

__________

“What I did for this particular outline was something I’d learned to do in technical writing, and that was to put down each idea on individual slips of paper and then compare them and see which went first. So my outline was always in a series of slips that went on, one after another.

I was just putting down these slips and comparing them. But this particular form gave me the advantage of being able to expand in the middle, of being able to reorganize at any time, so I had a flexible outline that could grow as my understanding of the story grew. I was never limited. I was free to throw away where I had been and restart again, over and over again, with what was coming in new.

And I’m sure that in any creative project you really can’t perceive what the end is going to be, unless it is a very small thing you’re doing. I think the advantage of this particular device was that it always kept me open, it always kept me flexible, it always gave me a kind of a hollowness, so that I could constantly be refilled with new things that were coming in.”

– Robert Pirsig, On Quality

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What freedom: to start a story wherever you like. To write a fragment here, another there.

I love scheduling my writing for the same time every day, but I don’t want to be told what to write on any given day, even if the telling is by me.

For a writer whose output is random blog posts, Nabokov and Pirsig give me hope that my work could be corralled into a unifying theme one day.

But more than that, I feel the flexibility to write about whatever has captured my attention.

There is no pressure to conform.

I have dozens of fragments saved as drafts, waiting for the right guests to join me for a chat.

I read On Quality in January. I always knew it would be paired with Nabakov but I was unsure where I could find a quote of him talking about his notecards.

A newsletter today from The Paris Review revealed what I had been looking for.

Two authors united in conversation by me.

This is what I love to do.

“You’re always saying you’re too weak to be Strong. 
You’re harder on yourself than just about Anyone 

Why swim the channel just to get this far? 
Halfway there, why would you turn around? 

Darkness comes in waves…tell me, 
Why invite it to stay? 

You’re one with negativity 
Yes, comfort is an energy 
But why let the sad song play? 

I have faced it, a life wasted 
I’m never going back again 

Oh I escaped it, a life wasted 
I’m never going back again 

Having tasted, a life wasted 
I’m never going back again 

Oh I erased it, a life wasted 
I’m never going back again.”

– Pearl Jam, Life Wasted

__________

“You can’t go home, no I swear you never can
You can walk a million miles and get nowhere
I got no where to go and it seems I came back
Just filling in the lines for the holes, and the cracks

Hey, no one knows me
No one saves me
No one loves or hates me
I’ve been away for too long

This place has a special kind of falling apart
Like they put the whole thing together in the dark
No one knows where the edge of the knife is
And no one knows where intelligent life is

Hey, no one knows me
No one saves me
No one loves or hates me
Going straight
I only ever really wanted a break
I’ve been away for too long
No I never really wanted to stay
I’ve been away for too long.”

– Soundgarden, Been Away Too Long

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Certain songs are like a rallying cry.

They scream to me, freedom!

I feel alive and untethered.

With my movement I reject conformism and the status quo.

I am an animal allowing my cellular structure to air.

Songs can help maintain the lift.

By physically challenging myself, I prove to my I am not wasting my life.

But I’ve been away too long from this freedom in movement.

It sure feels good.

I know this feeling will not last.

But it cost me nothing to get here.

A little sweat.

A reminder to find connection with myself away from words and pages.

“The kindness of one human being to another in times of mass hatred and violence deserves more respect than the preaching of all the churches since the beginning of time.”

– Charles Simic, The Monster Loves His Labyrinth

__________

“There are millions of us in the same condition and still the papers think they thrill us by announcing catastrophes in enormous headlines. My wife and my children. What good does it do me to get upset if man is not the way I’d like him to be? (By what right? In whose name?) Four days ago for the first time I saw D. really suffering, giving in to suffering, without being able to comfort her. That upset me more than a war.”

– Georges Simenon, When I Was Old

__________

Our reality is a pretty tight circle around our five senses.

Those who are physically closer to us, who we rely on and who turn rely on us rightfully take up the majority of our attention.

By showing kindness, we take action.

Rather than advice, we move to help.

Move away from the screen and into the embrace of those you truly love.

“THE ONLY MAXIM – DON’T BE BORING
I have taken great inspiration from one film moment that struck me as a message about writing. In the first Alien, the surprise created when the alien bursts from Kane’s (the character played by John Hurt) chest is amazing. It sends a message to the audience that there are no boundaries in this movie.”

– Pen Densham, Riding the Alligator

__________

“For humor writing, you can saturate your sentences with interesting words. For business or professional writing, you might want to use one interesting word in an entire document. It will be noticed. In a good way.”

– Scott Adams, Reframe Your Brain

__________

Yawn.

The body’s automatic intake of oxygen.

A signal that the person is low on energy.

The worst reaction to witness when you are talking to someone.

Here I am talking to you.

Or talking to me, as I am the first audience.

I want to be interesting.

I suppose if I write about what is interesting to me, then my writing will always be interesting to myself.

But is it interesting to others?

I think there is a lot to be said for brevity. Keep things short, to the point, then get the hell out of here!

“For he lived in wait of something that he assumed was to come his way, and gave himself up to dreaming and “seeing” far more than to functioning in life. The sense he had that something particularly fine was about to happen remained with him throughout his life something which would solve all his problems and make his life simple and clear.

He “saw” this and waited . .. Thus, everything he did in life was merely “temporary,” what he had to do until the expected would finally come to pass.”

– A. R. Luria, The Mind of a Mnemonist

__________

“Most people never think about running out of time. They look ahead and see days and months and years of empty dates on the calendar, and assume they have plenty of time to fill them… We allow time to dictate so many of our decisions. How long will it take? When is it due? How much time should I put in? It’s late, I need to stop. What time does this end? Stop managing time, and start managing your focus.”

– Tim S. Grover, Winning

__________

Reading the Luria quote made my legs feel weak.

I recognised the pathology of his patient.

A life spent waiting.

An imaginary opportunity, unearned but expected.

But things don’t just happen, they emerge as the result of doing.

They require focus.

A deliberate intention followed swiftly by action.

Not everything works out.

Then you do something else.

I wish I could write from experience.

I have gotten pretty good at doing nothing.

It takes a lot of effort to start something new.

Rather than focus on a distant goal to get me moving, I figure out a system that I can sustain indefinitely.

I am not interested in intermittent rewards. I want things to last forever.

Pretty ambitious.

But by focusing on creating systems that I can sustain and be rewarded by for a lifetime, I engage in my life every day.

Read, Write, Walk.

These quotes remind me I don’t have a lot of time: every day counts.

I am choosing to count my days with posts about quotes.