“A book is a machine to think with”

– I. A. Richards, quoted in Writing as Thinking by Keith Oatley and Maja Djikic

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“Thinking, as opposed to making rather superficial distinctions and decisions is, apparently, unnecessary for everyday life. Most people simply go along with their lives, accepting what happens to them, attributing to good and back luck whatever fortune or plight comes their way.”

– Charles Willeford, I Was Looking For a Street

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Book are a defence against cruise control: days can blend into weeks; weeks into months; the journey is a blur.

Reading helps me step out of the everyday into a world of frozen time.

I can enter other worlds, pick up new ways of thinking.

I have conversations with strangers who can so easily become trusted companions.

I can take these new thoughts back with me to use when time starts up again, when my eyes lift from the page.

Filling my head with other people’s ideas, I am better able to think for myself.

I know I do not have all the answers.

I cannot know it all.

I know there are always better ways of doing things.

But there is always another great book awaiting to be discovered.

Fed one by one into my subconscious, these books power the machinery of my imagination.

“When I was training to become a green beret medic, I had a small road map of Wyoming and Montana I always carried with me. I kept it hidden in the notebook in which I was supposed to keep my military notes. I stared at it, especially at the blank spaces, for several hours of every day for over a year as I pulled duty on different military bases scattered over the deep South, where the soil was always the color of clotted blood.

With this map, I would travel in my mind over the ridges and peaks into hidden basins and high cirques of the Wind River Range and the Yellowstone Plateau, or explore the emptiness of the Bob Marshall Wilderness up north.

In those days the image of a single wild place- a great canyon of the Southwest, a cascading mountain stream, or a high ridge of tundra dropping off steeply into a hidden alpine basin-could bring on a bottomless homesickness.”

– Doug Peacock, Grizzly Years

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“And I had to get home. ‘Home’, here, does not mean a house. In Russian the word is rodina. Rodina is the land, our life force. If we were to be taken from it we should know only the dead slab of the fallen wood.”

– Alan Garner, Powsels and Thrums

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I would love to be someone connected to the land.

But my suburban upbringing failed to place me in contact with any wild places.

I do not live near where I grew up.

I feel no especial pull to go back.

But I do have an understanding of home.

For me it’s not a place but a season.

Early spring.

The first verdant greens and lengthening days.

The promise of just a little more, tomorrow.

I can’t quite remember the sensation during winter but I know something isn’t quite right.

Now I feel a renewal of my life force: I am becoming more myself.

Closer to where I started.

In total ignorance of the cycle repeating itself.

Not too long for now I will be slowly taken away again, packed away for winter.

But not today.

“Then, late one night deep into a mystery novel and a fresh bottle of bourbon, and after a copious snack when such resolutions are possible, the Beginner stood in front of the mirror and said, “I will get in shape or die trying.””

– Jim Harrison, The Search for the Genuine

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“There were stories of prisoners being incarcerated for years in such places. I sat down again and began to prepare myself for an ordeal. First, I would strengthen my will by fasting; I would refuse all food for at least a week. Second, I would make three resolutions to support me through whatever was to come: no regrets, no sentimentality, no self-pity. Then I did what generations of prisoners have done before me. I stood up and, bending my head, I began to walk round and round and round and round . . .”

Terry Waite, Taken on Trust

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Some resolutions are optional. Others are mandatory.

If it would be nice to do something then it will be equally nice not to do it.

If you have to do something then there is no going back.

It’s not a resolution, it’s a necessity.

Not leisure, but survival.

Often a resolution will bubble up from the mulch of shame, whilst we are doing, or have just done the very thing we want to renounce.

The future is solvable with a drink in your hand.

It’s easy to be bold when we can begin tomorrow.

The alternative to resolutions is simply doing a little of what you’d like to do a lot of right now.

I’d love to have more time to write: it would be an easy resolution to boldly declare that I will dedicate one hour a day to it.

The trouble begins when I have to subtract that hour from whatever else I must do.

Instead I write here and there. I have adapted to my circumstances.

But most importantly I have proven to myself that I do want to write. It is not wishful thinking. I am doing it right now.

No resolutions needed.

No promises I will inevitably break.

A simple commitment to take a step forward every day, if I can.

I start to circle the room.

Committing one word at a time.

I might not be a Writer.

But I write…

“I once saw graffiti written on a blackboard over the urinal that said BLOW ME, ASSHOLE. I ran home, got my camera, came back, took a photo of it, and later sold it in a New York art gallery for $5,000. Art is everywhere. You just have to notice.”

– John Waters, Mr Know-it-all

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“It’s not who says it, it’s who spots it.”

– Dave Trott, Creative Mischief

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Opportunity surrounds us.

The constant invitation to take notice.

Ignorance is to miss.

To miss out on knowing more.

I love the discovery of new ideas but also the joy in a noticed turn of phrase.

It helps the world go round.

To be starved of new words is a serious challenge for me.

I need a constant stream of reading, a conveyor belt of words. The more I read the better I am at picking out what matters to me.

The rest can pass me by.

I’ll grab what I need and move on.

“I had never in my life wanted to convert anyone else to my own beliefs. It was enough for me to make them known and be able to do so in public.”

– Stefan Zweig, The World of Yesterday

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“Imagine a party. The guests, from all walks of life, are not negligible. They’ve been around: they’ve lived, suffered, own businesses, have real areas of expertise. They’re talking about things that interest them, giving and taking subtle correction. Certain submerged concerns are coming to the surface and—surprise, pleasant surprise—being confirmed and seconded and assuaged by other people who’ve been feeling the same way. Then a guy walks in with a megaphone.

He’s not the smartest person at the party, or the most experienced, or the most articulate. But he’s got that megaphone.

Say he starts talking about how much he loves early mornings in spring. What happens? Well, people turn to listen. It would be hard not to. It’s only polite. And soon, in their small groups, the guests may find themselves talking about early spring mornings. Or, more correctly, about the validity of Megaphone Guy’s ideas about early spring mornings. Some are agreeing with him, some disagreeing—but because he’s so loud, their conversations will begin to react to what he’s saying…

…These responses are predicated not on his intelligence, his unique experience of the world, his powers of contemplation, or his ability with language, but on the volume and omnipresence of his narrating voice.

His main characteristic is his dominance. He crowds the other voices out. His rhetoric becomes the central rhetoric because of its unavoidability.

In time, Megaphone Guy will ruin the party. The guests will stop believing in their value as guests, and come to see their main role as reactors-to-the-Guy…

…We consider speech to be the result of thought (we have a thought, then select a sentence with which to express it), but thought also results from speech (as we grope, in words, toward meaning, we discover what we think).

This yammering guy has, by forcibly putting his restricted language into the heads of the guests, affected the quality and coloration of the thoughts going on in there. He has, in effect, put an intelligence-ceiling on the party.”

– George Saunders, The Brain Dead Megaphone

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What I share and write here is a reflelection of how I see the world.

It will certainly be different by degrees to anyone else’s view.

Good.

I don’t want anyone else to think precisely as I do.

What a bore.

Not everyone will hear my voice.

Reading gives the power to the reader to amplify of minimise the message of the words.

There’s no sales pitch here.

I have no targets to hit.

You are not a captive audience.

I endeavour to keep the tone conversational.

No preaching and leaching your energy.

I simply want the freedom to share.

And for you: to have the freedom to ignore.

“Suggestion provokes imagination, and imagination builds reality.”

– Don Miguel Ruiz, The Toltec Art of Life and Death

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“SEE THAT SPACE BETWEEN THE PANELS? THAT’S WHAT COMICS AFICIONADOS HAVE NAMED “THE GUTTER.”

AND DESPITE ITS UNCEREMONIOUS TITLE, THE GUTTER PLAYS HOST TO MUCH OF THE MAGIC AND MYSTERY THAT ARE AT THE VERY HEART OF COMICS!

HERE IN THE LIMBO OF THE GUTTER, HUMAN IMAGINATION TAKES TWO SEPARATE IMAGES AND TRANSFORMS THEM INTO A SINGLE IDEA.

NOTHING IS SEEN BETWEEN THE TWO PANELS, BUT EXPERIENCE TELLS YOU SOMETHING MUST BE THERE!

COMICS PANELS FRACTURE BOTH TIME AND SPACE, OFFERING A JAGGED, STACCATO RHYTHM OF UNCONNECTED MOMENTS.

BUT CLOSURE ALLOWS US TO CONNECT THESE MOMENTS AND MENTALLY CONSTRUCT A CONTINUOUS, UNIFIED REALITY.”

– Scott McCloud, Understanding Comics

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A story must have space for the reader or viewer to use their imagination to fill in gaps.

Some mystery is needed to keep us engaged.

Just like those people we meet who quickly exhaust us with the minutia of their lives.

So do attempts by filmmakers to overstuff and overwhelm with backstory.

A prime example are the Star Wars prequels. I didn’t want to see where Darth Vader came from. I preferred his existence as a ready made and terrifying villain.

The original trilogy became less interesting as a result of this overabundance of information.

I liked the mystery of a character’s origins. It was an invitation for my imagination to take part.

Rewatching Blade Runner: it was the Final Cut, which reinstated a voiceoer removed from the Directors Cut – the version I grew up watching.

What makes the film so special to me is the lingering shots of the city soundtracked by Vangelis’ haunting score.

There is space to linger in. A world to be absorbed into.

In the Final Cut this was babbled over with pointless exposition.

This overwhelmed and filled the gutter.

I like a bit of mystery to a film. It is satisfying to make links. It rewards multiple viewings. I do not want to be told everything up front.

Give me a suggestion of a motive. A glimpse of a world. A limited perspective.

Isn’t this what we want from art? A curation based on someone else’s point of view?

If everyone else’s opinions are accommodated we descend into a crowd, where voices are only registered as decibels, rather than what they are designed for: conversations.

Gimme some space!

“You begin saving the world by saving one man at a time; all else is grandiose romanticism or politics.”

– Charles Bukowski, Women

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“Nobody has to meet Tennessee Williams; all you have to do is reread his work. Listening to what he has to say could save your life, too.”

– John Waters, Role Models

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To breathe in: inspiration.

To breathe out: exhalation.

CPR: to manually preserve intact brain function using artificial respiration.

In other words: to breathe out to help someone else breathe in.

A metaphor:

We breath in new ideas by reading (inspiration).

We breath out our new ideas by writing (exhalation).

Sometimes we need a little more help.

Reading CPR: to preserve brain function by breathing in another’s life force through words.

I mean a great book.

That rejuvenates us.

Gives us life.

We can also exhale and give someone else our life force through our writing.

We are all able to administer it. No formal training required.

But you owe it to the world to at least practice a little before you start trying it on others.

No harm in writing a sentence or two in private.

Then start sharing.

You might save a life.

“And you teeter to the edge of the precipice and as a human, just as the human animal that we are, you’ve got a decision. You either step back from the edge and let others take up the slack and do it for you and you follow, or you choose to leap. And you either will then slam into the bottom of the cliff and make a mess with your guts and your brains everywhere, or you will actually arrest your fall through a number of different mechanisms. Self-belief being the most important one.”

– Richard Taylor, on The Tim Ferriss Show #799

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“I had long since discovered I must jump off cliffs with a great substantial dream and build my wings on the way down. Passion, not intellect, won the day.”

– Ray Bradbury, Bradbury Speaks

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I start a blog post with no idea of what to write about.

But I have already leapt onto the page.

No one pushed me off the edge.

No one is watching my swift descent.

I chose this.

It’s exhilarating to feel this freedom.

Writing.

With no end in mind, but a need to fill the page.

Somehow my fingers keep tapping out words.

More are added.

I am making something here.

I feel a creeping sense of satisfaction.

I have achieved a haphazard kind of flight.

I believed in myself.

It was not a disaster.

Fear of gravity was overcome by curiosity of its effects.

No masterpiece was created.

The experience was all I needed.

I must remember this tomorrow.

When I approach the precipice.

I hope I am brave.

Because this great feeling requires daily renewal.

“Now, you can say that I’ve grown bitter but of this you may be sure
The rich have got their channels in the bedrooms of the poor
And there’s a mighty judgment coming, but I may be wrong
You see, you hear these funny voices in the Tower of Song.”

– Leonard Cohen, Tower of Song

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“We should treat our minds as innocent and ingenuous children whose guardians we are- be careful what objects and what subjects we thrust on their attention… Every thought that passes through the mind helps to wear and tear it, and to deepen the ruts, which, as in the streets of Pompeii, evince how much it has been used.”

– Henry David Thoreau, quoted in The Night Country by Loren Eiseley

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What we pay attention to we pay for.

There can be upfront costs, but often the real costs are hidden.

It’s better to pay attention to ourselves. My own thoughts are free to pluck.

And I try to curate my attention toward books.

They are relatively inexpensive.

They take effort for someone to produce.

I benefit from their careful editing.

A book does not bombard me.

I’ll never be a victim of doom scrolling a book. I’m either paying attention, turning the next page, or I simply put the book down.

The thoughts I read have civilised conversations with my own thoughts.

There is a community of ideas.

The more attention I pay to my own thoughts the wealthier my attention becomes.

I’d rather contribute to my own wealth fund than a strangers’.

And by buying books I contribute to the wealth of strangers that I have gotten to know and respect.

I practice conscious consumption.

Not all thoughts or ideas are my own.

But I try to have a tight rein on my attention so the ideas of others do not crowd my own.

I like the sound of my funny voices as they deepen the ruts of my mind.

“The recognition that I needed to train and discipline my character. Not to be sidetracked by my interest in rhetoric. Not to write treatises on abstract questions, or deliver moralizing little sermons, or compose imaginary descriptions of The Simple Life or The Man Who Lives Only for Others.”

– Marcus Aurelius, Meditations

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“Now as Pliny says, each man is a good education to himself, provided he has the capacity to spy on himself from close up. What I write here is not my teaching, but my study; it is not a lesson for others, but for me.”

– Michel de Montaigne, Of Practice

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I am going to try to write like Marcus Aurelius. I have modest goals: to write like a Roman Emperor.

I am going to try to write like Michel de Montaigne. Again, my modest emulation of a landed aristocrat.

How can I possibly be so bold?

Because they did not write from a point of status.

They wrote for themselves.

If I can remember that all the writing I do here is for me, a place to figure things out, I will do ok.

Marcus Aurelius did not have publication in mind.

There was no exercise in reframing his reputation as a thoughtful philosopher rather than an expansionist warrior.

He wrote for himself.

We are lucky that these thoughts were recorded. And more so because they were preserved.

But the power is in their self reflection. Writing as a companion for our lives.

It’s a reminder to get on with my days: the practicalities of work family and leisure.

A reminder that this writing isn’t the point of living, merely a necessary exercise in reflection and clarification.

My writing is fortunate in having a built in audience: me.

I make sure I read everything that I write.

Each sentence I get closer to knowing who I am.

My number one fan.