“We have less reason to be surprised or offended when we find others differ from us in opinions because we very often differ from ourselves.”

– Samuel Johnson, quoted in The Road to Character by David Brooks

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“It’s the process of making the art, the process of living itself, from which meaning, truth, and beauty are derived, not the product of that process. The product—whether it was a sandcastle, a painting, or an album—only offers an illusion of permanence. These too will eventually decompose and disappear, albeit on a different timeline. The art is always in the doing, not the memorializing.”

– Serj Tankian, Down with the System

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I’ll never get a tattoo.

I could not reconcile such public permanence with my feeling of constant change.

The things that are most meaningful, I like to keep close. I don’t wish for their uninhibited broadcast as I walk down the street or stretch out on the beach.

I am quite happy to be anonymous. I do not wish for my skin to pique someone’s attention.

I like to be in control of the disclosure of my innermost self.

I am not the canvas: I like projecting myself onto paper and screens. Then I have the freedom to delete or discard.

I prefer to make little piles of thoughts here, off to the side.

Very few people are interested in my opinion nor share my taste.

If you are, you know where to find me…

“Our stereotypical formula, “practice makes perfect” carries with it some subtle and serious problems. We think of practice as an activity done in a special context to prepare for performance or “the real thing.” But if we split practice from the real thing, neither one of them will be very real.”

– Stephen Nachmanovitch, Free Play

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“Ninety-nine per cent of the difference between successful innovative people and those who fail is commitment to self-improvement. The extraordinary amount of time and effort the successful put into developing their work amplifies their abilities. If someone is more successful than you, the chances are they work harder at self-development. Practice is important but it has to be good practice. Bad practice is thoughtlessly repeating something to perfect it. Good practice is putting time into imaginative improvement.”

– Rod Judkins, The Art of Creative Thinking

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I can only guarantee that my writing is evidence of practice, not progress.

I don’t write every day with pressure of improvement in mind.

I do not click a stopwatch or stretch out a measuring tape.

My sessions don’t conclude with a pep talk about performance.

The writing happens, or it doesn’t.

What I take responsibility for and measure is the commitment to the practice.

Something may come out of a writing session, or not, but the practice remains, continues, is.

Because I am practicing there is every chance I write something of interest.

By asking my imagination to connect with my pen, I reinforce those bonds, perhaps a nudge closer to being in sync.

Or not.

I turn up anyway. Try my best. Then go home.

“You have to use your imagination to invent something better than life because life itself is dull and prosaic.”

– Erskine Caldwell, quoted in Page Fright: Foibles and Fetishes of Famous Writers by Harry Bruce

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“Fantasy has been the stuff of my life. I want to be moved and grooved and taken where I’ve never been before.”

Harry Crews, Florida Frenzy

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I lack the spark of inspiration today.

Not going to force things.

Happily there is a bounty of great stuff from others to hide behind.

Today is not a day for effort.

If I try to push things and make attempts at appearing wise, I’ll be a fool.

Better to keep moving along.

There’s always tomorrow.

“A wizard is never late, Frodo Baggins. Nor is he early, he arrives precisely when he means to.”

– Gandalf, The Fellowship of the Ring (Screenplay by Fran Walsh, Philippa Boyens, Peter Jackson, based on the book by J.R.R. Tolkien)

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“In any truly significant conversation with a person or reading of a book, the intensity of the first dawning of ideas scours the memory like the ground zero of an explosion.”

– Peter Brown, Journeys of the Mind

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Today doesn’t feel particularly auspicious.

There’s no breakthrough or revelation leaping from the page.

I’m still doing all the mental and physical things needed to write something significant.

Significance can come about through the same action as mediocrity.

I cannot control or command significance to emerge; I must worship at the page, get down on my knees and write.

If significance chooses to visit, I’m ready to record every word like a dedicated disciple at his master’s feet.

I wait for tidbits.

Like Plato recording Socrates, I capture what the great teacher tells me.

I don’t know when he will arrive; he keeps to his own schedule: just like Gandalf, significance is never late or early.

When the idea emerges, I leap to action, pen in hand, ready to record, my mind ever so slightly altered.

Silently, patiently, loyally, I wait for the sign.

“”I’m scared!”

“Scared of what?” he asked, almost sounding human and caring.

“I’m scared that this is my one and only dream and that if I start and I fail I will have nothing left. Nothing left. Nothing left.””

– Bradley Charboneau, Every Single Day

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“Oh, I’m done hidin’, now I’m shining
Like I’m born to be
Oh, our time, no fears, no lies
That’s who we’re born to be”

– Huntr/x, Golden

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I’ve always felt like a person with no purpose.

I find it hard to plan and to focus.

Every day feels like a new start, little carried over from previous days.

Unlike Sisyphus there is no mountain for the boulder to roll down.

It remains inert on a dusty plain – a road to nowhere.

No momentum.

No plan.

No direction.

No ambition.

But plenty of fear.

Perhaps I’m meant to hang in there, keep rolling, the horizon revealing where I’ve always wanted to be.

Maybe I need to put the work in to reveal the destination

Might as well keep going then.

What else should I do, abandon hope?

Then I’ll never discover anything.

At least I am not alone on my journey.

I have these writers unknowingly cheering me from the sidelines with their words of wisdom.

I’m feeling emboldened – amazing what a little writing can do.

“Every time you confront something painful, you are at a potentially important juncture in your life—you have the opportunity to choose healthy and painful truth or unhealthy but comfortable delusion.”

– Ray Dalio, Principles: Life and Work

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“It was the monotony and sterility of the other outlets which drove me to desperation. I demanded a realm in which I should be both master and slave at the same time: the world of art is the only such realm. I entered it without any apparent talent, a thorough novice, incapable, awkward, tongue-tied, almost paralyzed by fear and apprehensiveness. I had to lay one brick on another, set millions of words to paper before writing one real, authentic word dragged up from my own guts… I had to throw myself into the current, knowing that I would probably sink.”

– Henry Miller, The Wisdom of the Heart

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I get up and write.

I join that community of strangers heeding the call.

We who have been hypnotized by the same unnameful force that caused us to turn away from the world and cast our gaze downward onto the page, inward upon ourselves.

I imagine that I pull out my guts onto the page, in a practice of visceral honesty. In fact, they are merely the brightly coloured handkerchiefs of the amateur magician.

It’s a trick, an illusion, mere self-entertainment, soon to be forgotten when the next demand of real life comes by.

The page is my mirror in front of which I practice and perfect my simple tricks.

I’m not going to fool anyone except, perhaps, myself.

I keep at it though.

What’s next? There’s only so much an amateur can do on his own.

What is a magic trick without an audience? Only they can tell if it has been successful or not.

Are these words, intended to create a happy illusion for others, simply an exercise in self delusion?

What compels me?

Can I be truly honest with myself and say that I stare not into the mirror, but through it at an imaginary audience?

Do I dream of that stage whilst scribbling in the dark?

Am I laying a true foundation for something real?

Do I even know what success or failure looks like?

Isn’t the act of creation enough without embellishing it with expectations and definitions?

Only time will tell.

“Like a very talented pianist once told me when I was a boy, it’s better to practice a musical instrument for five minutes a day than to practice for two hours once a week. It’s something I never forgot.”

– Hugh MacLeod, Evil Plans

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“But you must do. Modifying your own behavior is the most effective and rewarding way to minimize the gap. Simply thinking will not move the needle. In fact, the more you think without doing, the longer the list of things that “need” to be done becomes and the wider the gap gets. The wider the gap, the more stress, anxiety and risk of paralysis. The only way to close the gap is to act!”

– Nic Peterson, Bumpers

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I enjoy my daily writing practice.

A little writing time. A modest daily commitment to hit publish.

Doing something small now is so much better than the big pressure of a mega session later.

I cannot imagine sitting down on a weekend and saying, “right, got to write seven blog posts today.”

No way. I would be too overwhelmed.

But I chip away daily.

I’m not looking for perfection, but for the happy medium between reflection and completion.

Hitting publish wraps up my current thought.

I feel better.

I give myself a hit of what I crave- a dose of daily medication administered from within.

My inexhaustible supply of good feeling.

“The word unfolds in time, like a procession of ants, and each one brings something new and unexpected; he who expresses himself in words is born anew each second; scarcely has one sentence been completed than the next one supplements it, completes it, and behold in the movement of words the endless play of my existence expresses itself – when I express myself in words, I am like a tree in the wind, rustling, quivering.”

– Witold Gombrowicz, Diary Volume 2

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“I think ideas are as real as trees.”

– Jim Harrison, Conversations with Jim Harrison

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A tree grows slowly.

During its life there is a yearly cycle of change.

Leaves abound then fall.

The glory of spring and summer turn to autumn’s letting go. Then the bare existence of winter.

A tree is never static.

It’s cycles are a kind of self-grooming: it prevents overgrowth.

I need to accept that there are constant thoughts and ideas swirling in my head.

If I do not write them down, then they remain within, snarled and entangled.

In writing, they become real. I can sort, file, keep, or discard them.

Writing is a practice of constant renewal.

The real skill is in the management of the mind forest.

Sure, wildness is fantastic. But what I need to do is create a habitat in which I can thrive.

“Eliminate everything that is not light!”

– Plotinus, quoted in, Plotinus or the Simplicity of Vision by Pierre Hadot

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“I continually use my experience of being present during a child’s first steps as an example of positive feedback… When the adults realised what was happening, they all sat in a circle. The young performer teetered and wobbled from the outstretched arms of one adult to another Ooo’s, ahs, smiles, cheers and hand claps all around the circle. There was a huge, beaming smile on the child’s face. Not a single adult thought of saying, ‘That was lovely (insert your own name), now if you could just hold your back a little straighter and lift your knees higher, you will walk even better the next time’. Why not? The child certainly was not walking well. Yet we, the adults, knew that the child would continue to develop the skills of walking, running, skipping, hopping and other forms of exciting locomotion. It is important that student improvisers return to this atmosphere of playful exploration they had as young children, the time in life when our impulsive behaviour is at its peak.”

– Al Wunder, The Wonder of Improvisation

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A mantra: Keep the feedback positive.

Most important is what I direct toward myself.

Notice what I am doing well.

Improvements will be made through practice.

I do not need to bombard myself with negativity.

Look for the light. Head toward it!

Keep reading.

Keep writing.

Create space for reflection.

Whatever it is I am doing here, it is positive.

Because I am doing.

These baby steps are faltering, but they will continue.

I will only grow stronger through practice.

I pick myself off of the floor.

I fix my sights on the horizon.

I keep moving.

“The more I consult my feelings during the day, tune in to myself to see if what I am doing is what I want to be doing, the less I feel at the end of the day that I have been wasting time.”

– Hugh Prather, Notes to Myself

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“The body doesn’t think. It knows exactly what it needs to know. My imagination is much more interesting than my life. Even when uninvited, it remains in the corner creating its own world.”

– Ruth Zaporah, Improvisation on the Edge

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I am back, to precisely no fanfare.

I am writing here again. A fresh tree has been felled. I heard, but it matters not that no one else will.

I want to write, which is the exact opposite of wasting time.

My curiosity is scratched by my reading. I report on how my mind heals the wounds with new sentences of my own.

It doesn’t have to be grand.

My life and imagination cannot be summarised in one blog post.

Instead, like everything else worth doing, it’s all in the steps.

I like today’s footprint. But already I am listening to hear where tomorrow’s footfall will take me.