‘If one is forever cautious, can one remain a human being?’

– Alexander Solzhenitsyn, The First Circle

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“But the ultimate goal for all of us, I guess, is twofold: managing the day-to-day challenges of living and, at the same time, finding ways of truly being ‘alive’.”

– John Peck, How to Add Adventure to Your Life

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It’s not realistic to try to set up our lives for pure adventure or to face constant risk

Not for me any way.

But what John Peck is saying here that we can have two systems running in our lives.

1. Taking care of work, family, bills etc

2. Planning and implementing adventure and risk to fulfill our promise as human beings.

If we are bored or burned out by the first, the second can offer us escape and growth.

If we have pushed ourselves in adventure, then the reliability and safety of our day to day routines can offer a place to recover.

Perhaps a the Yin and Yang of safety and adventure.

A balance.

And risk does not have to be merely physical.

Doing anything that creates fear is adventurous.

Like the person who was scared to write and publish their work and share it with others.

But starts a blog because they feel the call to adventure.

And returns every day to dose up on being a human being.

You are reading the results of this modest intellectual adventure.

My philosophical identity.

A mish-mash of different ideas.

I don’t need to defend my position or defend one idea.

I’m happy to change my mind when new information comes to light.

Mongrels live longer than purebreeds.

They are resilient and adaptive.

They don’t look identical.

A mongrel philosopher cross breeds ideas to create their own philosophy.

You take what looks interesting and useable.

And discard what is too unwieldy or obscure.

You don’t need to take an entrenched position to defend what you believe is right or true.

You just get on with your life of sniffing trees and waiting for dinner.

It seems that every established writer now uses Substack to publish their articles and blogs.

I don’t want to write on Substack.

I am a beginner. I feel nervous at the thought of publishing on Substack.

Too many comparisons that I’ll choose to make.

That will distract and discourage my own writing.

I am sensitive. I’m starting to incubate a writing practice.

It’s like I’m a beginner at a busy gym.

It’s intimidating to see others more confident doing what we want to do, but do it better.

Other people have their own goals for their training and writing.

Often it’s just a matter of time and experience that turns the nervous beginner into the seasoned practitioner.

Sometimes it’s better to start our new practice at home.

We can use the garage, the living room, any available space as a place to workout.

We don’t have to worry about what we look like.

We can privately work through the awkward first stages of learning new movements.

Same with writing.

I can write anywhere.

Publish in my own private space, this blog.

Then I avoid negative comparisons with others.

I am writing in a self imposed bubble.

I know I am not a professional writer. That’s not my goal.

I just want to get moving.

See my pen moving across the page.

The words typed on the screen.

Once I’m a regular practitioner I might enjoy the company of others.

I might feel confident to join the busy gym, strike up a conversation and develop and adapt my workouts.

One day I might be happy to see my writing in a feed intermingled with others.

But for now I’m happy at home, doing something daily, stumbling and sweating in private.

I have a goal to reach: writer.

“Every book is a self-help book to me. Just having them makes me feel better. I underline profusely but I don’t retain much. Reading is like a drug. When I am reading from these books it feels like I am thinking what is being read, and that gives me a rush. That is enough.”

– Marc Maron, Attempting Normal

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This is a true statement.

Because every book that I read, I’m looking for something.

It might not be conscious.

The best books leave me with something.

They help pull me along in life.

And life can be push and pull.

We can push ourselves along, using enthusiasm and our own ideas.

But sometimes, even often times, we need to be pulled along.

And good books help.

They pull us along when we’re feeling weary, or if we’re lacking direction. They help us to keep going.

So when Marc says that every book is a self help book, it’s a tool to help ourselves.

Books can help

They can help us help ourselves.

“For me, then, the act of reading was its own kind of essential school.

A customized school built and run just for me, one in which I learned so many important lessons…

While I was part of a larger system, I was able to secure another, more personal system of my own.

The mental image I have of a space of individual recovery is exactly like that. It’s not limited just to reading.”

– Haruki Murakami, Novelist as a Vocation

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I love this idea of a space of individual recovery.

A place to withdraw and recover from the demands of the ‘real world.’

For those of us lucky enough to have reading as our space of individual recovery it is simple.

Pick up a book and read.

Withdraw from the world.

Put the book down

Return to the world replenished.

“‘Whether a thought is spoken or not it is a real thing and it has power,’”

– Frank Herbert, Dune

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I thought for a long time about writing. Specifically, of starting a blog.

The length of time of suppressed action created a large store of potential energy in me.

The thoughts of writing provided me with the (eventual) power to write.

Not necessarily powerful writing.

But I have written.

Now I discover that writing (spoken thoughts) gives me power and creates more thoughts.

That have to be written down.

Which gives me more power.

A sustainable energy source.

“For imagination grows by exercise and contrary to common belief is more powerful in the mature than in the young”

– Somerset Maugham, The Summing Up

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I love reading about anything improving with age!

How do we exercise?

Reading.

Writing.

When do we exercise?

Every day.

A regular practice will help create imaginative fitness.

And we can choose our training partners.

To give us encouragement.

Pick up a book.

We are never alone.

“Herb Elliott would remark decades later that Percy Cerutty never read books so much as studied them. All his life he read with a pencil in his hand, making underlines, asterisks, question marks and notes in margins to imprint the content on his memory. On certain subjects of greatest passion, he took to making his own notes in exercise books.”

– Graem Sims, Why Die? The Extraordinary Percy Cerutty, ‘Maker of Champions’

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Yes, yes, yes!

Passion is what drives my reading. Passion to find out more.

What of?

I’m not sure. But I continue in a kind of quest to find out

Reading with a pencil? Yes!

Books are transformed through our selection and annotation. A million people may read the same book, but our annotations make it singularly our own.

Part of reading is questioning the author. Books don’t provide us answers, but allow us to ask better questions of ourselves.

“Somewhere at some time we were brainwashed into thinking fun is bad and unthinkingly took on board the puritanical belief that we shouldn’t be enjoying ourselves. This same thinking is common in totalitarian regimes. They don’t like fun either. I say screw ’em. Let’s strike a blow for freedom and creativity. Enjoy yourself, express your ideas, and have fun doing so. You’ll do whatever it is that much better.”

– John Hegarty, Hegarty on Creativity: There Are No Rules

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“A deadly seriousness emanates from all other forms of life. The yell of pain and of fear man has in common with the beasts, but he alone smiles and laughs.”

– Eric Hoffer, quoted in Eric Hoffer: The Longshoreman Philosopher, Tom Bethell

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What do we gain by not having fun?

What value is there in seriousness?

I have encountered situations over the years, in workplaces, where people acted so serious, ergo they took themselves so seriously.

Why?

I don’t know.

I’ve never worked where there were lives in danger. Not a war zone nor hostage negotiation.

There was no urgent need for seriousness.

But I know that seriousness made work less enjoyable without motivating me to make my work any better.

If we enjoy what we do and share it with others everyone will be better and have more fun.

“When you first start writing you are not noticed—that is the blessing of starting.”

– Ernest Hemingway, quoted in A. E. Hotchner, Papa Hemingway, p.199

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It is wonderful to write with the freedom of anonymity.

It is highly unlikely anyone else will read these words.

But I write because I want to read them. That’s is all the encouragement I need.

I am blessed.

Thankyou to each of the 8 billion other humans for not noticing.