Neil de Grasse Tyson and the Dangers of Philosophy

The NdGT controversy I think comes down to the question of thinking versus acting. Of determining some form of balance

Neil de Grasse Tyson recently made some comments that have been interpreted as saying 'philosophy is useless' -- as a man of want to be action, usually navel gazing, I didn't look too deeply at them, but rushed instead to form an opinion.

I did in fact read part of a transcript from the nerdist here (I think) and thought NdGT's comments were not out of line.



They come down to the existential dilemma we face every day. Acting without thinking versus thinking without acting -- and how we must each find a liveable balance between the two.

For years I made the joke about how hard it is to find a reason to get out of bed in the morning because we're all going to die.

Which is an extreme form of 'where do I turn my spade?' - which was the phrase used in some philosophy course I took. When do I stop questioning and just do something?

Where we fall on the gradient between active and introspective is likely the usual combination of genetic and cultural influences. Look at some identical twins separated at birth raised in different cultures and see how they score.

I believe NdgT's point was that you don't want to spend your entire life 'just thinking'. Or just introspecting. He seems to have been saying that scientists look at the world 'out there' and see endless questions that they may be able to find answers to.

I know that I'm prone to doing ALOT of introspection, but over the years I've had help identifying some of the times when you need to get your head out of your ass and look around. Negative introspection, when you keep telling yourself bad things about yourself. Throw up a flag, and consciously change what you're thinking/doing. Endlessly pondering a decision - at some point you have to weigh the cost of delaying a decision against the cost of making a wrong decision. And sometimes the decision is between two good things so there's little downside to EITHER! So you have to ask yourself - in these cases the SOONER I choose, the better. Procrastination - all the instances of challenges, like doing the dishes, where the amount of work won't change, but the amount of enjoyment of that work depends on when you do it. Doesn't mean you can do EVERYTHING right away, but it's a mental tool to remind yourself - hey, if I do that NOW, then I won't have to do it later.

Anyway - now I have to stop ruminating and work. But I think MAYBE NdGT's comments have been blown out of proportion, by peoples overthinking.

"Greening" the green movement

In order to revolutionize global agriculture and help save the planet, the green movement has to demonstrate how in the short term farming smarter will put money in your pocket.

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"La tendance est au desespoir"

It takes a not inconsiderable amount of energy to filter out the bad news and find the good. Lately, faced with the seemingly relentless stream of catastrophic climate change reports, political ass-hatitude, etc, I began actively seeking out good news to, you know, curtail my drinking.

I had been following the Permaculture Research Institute's email newsletter for awhile, and when they started pushing their online permaculture design course I looked into it.

Permaculture is a term coined by Bill Mollison and David Holmgren in 1978.

"Permaculture is a philosophy of working with, rather than against nature; of protracted and thoughtful observation rather than protracted and thoughtless labor; and of looking at plants and animals in all their functions, rather than treating any area as a single product system." - Bill Mollison [Mollison, B. (1991). Introduction to permaculture. Tasmania, Australia: Tagari.]

It's a tricky term to explain and needs some better branding.

In essence it is about designing systems to feed and support humans using natural processes that are self-regenerating and increase system fertility and productivity.

Farming smarter. Or S.M.A.R.T.E.R Farming - Sustainably Maximizing Agricultural Returns Through Ecological Resiliency. (I'm not so much a marketing guy...)

Modern industrial farming is very good at maximizing crop yields through the intensive application of chemical and mechanical inputs. i.e we throw a shit tonne of fertilizer and machines at a single species at a time and maximize it's yield per acre.

It works, it's allowed the world's population to explode, but it's carbon intensive and sucks fertility from the soil. As long as there's ever more land to farm, and fossil fuel in the form of fertilizer, diesel, etc, to throw at it, it "works".

But as arable land becomes scarce or impoverished, the costs of fuel and fertilizer rise, and the impacts of climate change increase, the tenuousness and fragility of stretching a few crop species to their limits become apparent.

Like a race car or professional athlete, you can achieve incredible things by pushing your capacities to the limits, but the risk of catastrophic failure or debilitating injury increase.

Minor perturbations can cause massive disruptions and almost everyone not being paid not to, agree we're in store for a few of those.

Now permaculture, and the various other names it goes under - regenerative organic agriculture [ used by Tom Newman and others, The Carbon Underground ], etc. create systems whose aim is to maximize yield and increase fertility through the intelligent design of interconnected ecological processes.

Every element in the system has many functions, and every function is supported by many elements. i.e if one part fails, other elements pick up the slack.

You maximize yield and fertility by acre by recycling all the resources available to the system - sun, water, wind, animal, vegetable and human waste streams etc, as many times as possible.


It's taking the most efficient energy and material converting processes on the planet - living systems, and arranging them to best serve our needs.

By returning sufficient organic material to the system, it builds resilience and increases yield with only the fertilization the system naturally provides.

...

I've fallen into the same trap I was hoping to avoid - telling people about the science instead of showing people the money.

In order for this "better" way to farm to be adopted, a number of options are open.

1) through force and coercion - people mount bloody revolutions or get their governments to enact policies that require better farming practices.

Not super likely.

2) grassroots activism and education - by spreading the good word, greenies enlist support and win over people to their cause

Generational - it's perhaps 'happening', but slowly

3) Money - Permaculture and regenerative organic farmers open their books and show the world how profitable smart farming can be.

While some of 1 may unfortunately occur, and some of 2 is to be applauded, "liked" and "shared" until our slacktivist clicking fingers are calloused and bloody, 3 - to me - is what could turn another "good idea" into reality.

If we can demonstrate, through audited financial statements showing yields per investment of time and money, that Smart Farming is better - everyone will jump on board.

If we can show small hold farmers all over the world that current industrial methods are expensive and impoverish the soil, while ecologically sound farming is cheap and produces greater yields, well then we're off to the races.

And I think this is the way forward.

As long as permaculture remains something we "should" do, or "could" do because it is "better" - it requires individuals to exert themselves to do it - either willingly, out of conviction, or reluctantly because they are coerced to do so.

But if the business case can be made - under current legislative regimes as overturning vested industrial agricultural interests will take some doing, then people will adopt these practices in droves.

It's a lot like exercise, eating healthily, tracking your budget. We can "know" they're good for us, but until we experience it for ourselves or see their positive impacts directly in others, it's just more shit we ought to do. Governments and proselytizers can encourage us, but the cheapest positive action is the one we take freely by ourselves.

So smart farmers - open your books, and show the world the "green" way forward.

Who is Beaver Canuck?

It's not clear where Beaver Canuck came from - except he keeps talking about 'Happy Forest' - but you can't find it on any map because the area he seems to be referring to is covered with tar sands development. I think that's why he's pissed.

What is known is that he came onto the scene a couple years ago strapped onto a bixi as some sort of tour guide, or something, for web videos filmed on a cheap cell phone. It didn't go well. But over the years more of his story has come out - in fits and starts. He's fixated with Stephen Harper, and blames him for destroying his home



Apocalypse Soon

It seems that his girl from back home may have been killed when the bipeds bulldozed Happy Forest for Tar Sand Development



Beavette in trouble

And it only got worse from there.

He's tried getting his message out in song



Pirogue or Prorogue

And he's uncovered a conspiracy or two little known to the general public.



Prorogues

And has had a thing or two to say about Stephen Harper' tastes in music - especially Nickleback which he resents because HE owns the nickle


Taking the Nickleback

Between frustration with the #cpc conservative party of Canada's relentless bullying and name calling he's tried to educate about basic political science:



If I'm a commie you're a Nazi



A Democracy refresher for Stephen Harper

Ecology...



Ecosystem services explained so even Stephen Harper can understand

History...



Peter Mackay Needs Wikipedia or a Book

Child psychology



Developmental immaturity so even Conservatives can understand it

General asshattery (see Jason Kenney's career - all of it)


Jason Kenney Starts a petition to thank himself

Which landed him on Canada's most wanted list



Wanted! The Beaver ends up on Canada's Wanted War Criminals list

…

and a bunch of other stuff like trying to make *lite* of the whole situation



Beaver Canuck tells Stephen Harper jokes

But all in all it's given him some anxiety issues, and he's sought professional help.


A Beaver Writes to his psychiatrist about Stephen Harper

Other people's problems

*dont read if depressed - read the post this links to instead. It's actually helpful*


I know the first thing about depression - maybe the first 7, but I don't know the next hundred. Or thousand. I'm around more depression than is good for me...

Now I'm not sure if that's true.

I was going to write ’I’m around more depression than is good for me, but my being around these people might be good for them’ - but that's pretty amazingly narcissistic, and doesn't necessarily capture the whole story.

And before this drones on, a great post you should read is 21 tips for holding your shit together when you’re depressed (link)

So other people's depressions have helped me recognize my own state of mental health and take it seriously (and I do feel lucky - lucky to generally be optimistic and basically never plumb anything deeper than melancholy and malaise). Other people's depressions have made me appreciate the tools I'm able to use - again, read the post, tools like diet, exercise, hair cuts, shoes, art, comedy, avoiding depressives, etc...and they've also hopefully given me a little more compassion. I know I've not been laid low like lots of people, and I really try to not “blame” them for being sick.

But I do sometimes. Despite knowing better.

I am one of those people who give advice though - sing the praises of exercise, diet, and a host of cognitive behavioural therapies. Even though I know how annoying advice can be - but life's a give and take.

The science is in that depression, like obesity and a host of other unpleasantries, is “contagious”. We can “bring down” those around us and conversely we can also “cheer them up” (citation needed). Probably why parents so instinctively worry about their kids socializing with the “right kind of people” - our paths are very dependent on initial conditions (take that meritocracy) and so the farther we travel along the greater the differences in outcomes based on those who travel with us.

Am I complaining? Sure, sometimes, but most of the depressives I know are my friends because they're incredibly creative. And like it or not I chose these people and this path - and freely continue to choose it. So my friends problems are my problems - and the question becomes are we drowning men and women, dragging each other down, or will we together rise above? Or will some people get jettisoned so the rest may live? Now that's dark, but that's life. There's only so much hope in a super fruit smoothie, and lots of people are not capable of cheering up.

So what does it become? Triage? Yup. And a constant interest in best practices. Again that post is so wonderful because its not written by some tit like me who gets “sad” and experiences “regret” but by a person who's learnt a thing or two in the trenches.

I wish my nearest and dearest could jog, could redefine surviving as victory. I wish they drank less beer and vodka and more smoothies, took better care of themselves and loved themselves better. But I still love them. And hope for the best for them. I don't know if they'll all “make it” - but they better. To puke out some more of their art before death wipes us away. Because, happy, sad, apathetic or euphoric, this is our moment.

This is it.

By the time you read this I will be the answer to everything

Tomorrow I become the answer to life, the universe, and everything. I've always enjoyed a healthy self regard, mixed with equal parts self-doubt, loathing, love and flagellation, so finally becoming the answer to the ultimate question will likely continue in the same vein.



Which led me to google feeling blood flowing in various parts of my body, which I do. Sometimes like a cellphone vibrating, but apparently common - so I stop reading. My capacity to bad trip on health issues is considerable, yet a series of doctors have sent me packing. Guess what? I'm aging. And the main goal is to avoid negative introspection.

Read a great quote by Neil de Grasse Tyson (thanks Lucinda) who said “there's only two philosophies I live by 1) to learn something new every day 2) to reduce in some way the suffering of others.”

And that's pretty damn good advice. The learning keeps you open and curious and interested, the helping helps you get over yourself. There's something about helping others, actively prioritizing the interests of others, that makes you feel great.

One of those benevolent side effects of enlightened self-interest - how getting our heads out of our asses - stopping feeling sorry for ourselves and wondering why the universe hasn't done more to pleasure us senseless - actually gives us pleasure. It's got a lot to do with detachment - the release from not caring so intensely about ourselves for awhile.

It helps to not be hungover - making my hand puppet a “Please subscribe”
video last night and downing a litre of Bitberger left my head crowding out my proctologist today, but it's better now. Why it will be easy (we’ll see what happens...) to start my 43rd clean and sober.

I'm pleased to have made it this far and look forward to many more - there's a beautiful video of the oldest holocaust survivor answering what keeps her going “I see beauty everywhere” which is pretty much what I aspire to. Given the frequency and intensity of the times I've thought I was dying makes the good times, hell the fair to middling times - twice as sweet.

Thank you all for the time we’ve spent together. I am truly lucky to know so many funny, smart, strange and disturbing yet on average decent people - given “what's out there” (I'm talking about YOU, interweeb) it's not something I take for granted.

Here's to happy times, health, and the wisdom to find beauty in everything. I just won't toast this one with alcohol - well, not yet.

Friday night lite

Even the mild bourgeois tit frustrations I suffer from can fill you with a powerful thirst. Booze is such a substitute for substance, the simulation of strong emotion, a relaxant, so the stresses you've been holding tight seem to melt away and the absence of pain feels a lot like pleasure.

Don't get me wrong - I love booze. There's plenty of stress we carry in a ridiculous orgy of self-indulgence, as if our lives were really SO dramatic that we run around in a whirl of make busy make believe.
Booze is good for that. Kind of dissolves away some of the pretence. Lets us relax a little. And there's no denying the placebo element - how depending on our culture booze lets us act in different ways (citation ). Some cultures get amorous, some belligerent, stripped of culture it's not actually the booze, more how we've been trained to hold it.

So after a week of petty frustrations. A week where I had to admit to myself, time and time again, that if I wanted a better job or to be self-employed, well I'd likely have to do something about it...I did SOME things. Tried to get you all to buy a Young Poodles shirt - not for the money, see, but for the moral support - worked, parented, spent too much time on FeelBad and Twatter...and then Friday approaches and there's several live music options.

Now avoiding temptation, that's the ticket...because you can feel the almond start to glow...that part of the brain that just wants to cut the tethers and head for the sun...but there's three little kids see, and keeping a smile on Saturday morning with the steady machine gun chudder of requests is hard enough well rested and regular. And there's the lack of sufficient petty worldly accomplishments to excuse any real kind of “celebrating” ...

But it's Friday night.

You pine for the “perfect” party - the booze up that has somehow been sanctioned by all the gods. But you settle for the actual party...or you don’t. Or, like I seem to love to do - you let the empty dharma kick around until every option fills you with disgust.

Not that the options themselves are bad. Just that you're not feeling worthy of facing the consequences of any of them.

And that’s where the marble stops, for awhile - no course of action seeming impeccable. A third way, a better way, would be to do something useful...but what are the odds of that?

Douchebag, heal thyself

I have of late, wherefore I know pretty much precisely, lossed much of my mirth.

I'm letting myself flounder between seeking a serious job and making a serious go of some projects of my own.

I'm wallowing in my own filth essentially. And about 7 of you have been following the steps. Thank you. Perhaps if I'd actually been wallowing in my own filth, and filmed it, I could be a You Tube sensation in one of those European countries where that shit (ha) is actually popular.

What I've been struggling with is: what do I want to do that has value? More precisely - what do I want to do that I can sell to others?

And it comes down to helping. And it is a deviously difficult windy road between the selfishness of 'I want' to the potentially remunerative road of 'helping others to help yourself'

When I work as a Picture Editor (link) I help other's tell their stories. I like it, but I've got stories of my own I want to tell.

As a Dad, I'm almost constantly helping - I love it, but it doesn't fulfil my ego's desire for recognition and praise.

I could teach - I could share what I know about editing - and maybe I will. I've certainly thought about that one.

But what I want to do is follow my curiosity - explore the world, both inner and outer, and try and understand my place in it. Our place in it. You know a mix of tweedy adventure and philosophy.

Which is why letting myself remain mired in the foothills of taking action is very frustrating. These top of mind frustrations - this indecisiveness, really only has one solution. Get over it! Get over yourself and actually take the steps that get you off of the floor and onto the next new thing.

The only justification for posting any of this is that perhaps one reader will recognize something of themselves and know they're not alone. That we easily become so weighted down by our own bullshit - our own empty dharmas - that we remain stuck in the same ruts for days…months…years.

People have made fortunes helping others help themselves.

I suppose if 'Getting to Comfy' was a business model that would be it. 'Here…this is what I struggled with…this is what I did, or didn't do…this is what happened.' What the introspective life does give you is quite a bit of experience with analysis - deconstructing what you're thinking and why. Not necessarily tools to do anything about it, but at least some clarity. So when other people tell you their problems you're like "Oh yeah I know what you mean - when I was last in that type of obsessive depressive nightmare I did …. x"

And maybe that's helpful?

Anyhow - once I buy my iphone holder tapping the European market might be the way to go.

Otherwise - time to move on. Endless self-questioning is pathological. There are tonnes more interesting questions to get to. Though like Boynton says: "ooh bellybutton, you're so fine…ooh bellybutton, I'm so happy you're mine"

Writing is Thinking

If you aren't using Scrivener - and I aren't but intend to - for organizing writing and other projects you're in for a treat.

And in following Scrivener on Twitter I came across a great testimonial from a user. And the line he wrote that I took away is 'writing is thinking'

Because I've been wondering 'what the crapzaki am I posting this stuff for?'

And it became clear that most of why I write, is because I like to think, and putting things in words takes some of the pressure off trying to hold everything between your ears.

So I do it for pleasure. Or therapy. Or both.

Now writing for others is a whole different beast. Last night Bruno said "We've got to make art for arts sake" and I said "That's bullshit, I make art for attention" - even though I knew it wasn't really true.

What it made me realize is that I write because I'm constantly trying to figure things out FOR MYSELF - and that's ok. It doesn't pay the bills, but its why I do it.

Now writing for others is a beast of a different colour, and I'm recognizing now why I've never really overcome my resistance to it.

It's a bit too much of a performance - a bit too much of 'do I need people to tell me my ideas are good before I believe my ideas are good?' -- it's where people who work a job and do their art for themselves are probably much happier than guys like me who are trying to do both. Ultimately, I mainly just write for myself - and then wonder why the shit I rush to the web isn't super fascinating.

So that's Thursday. It's got me thinking a little more clearly on how my motivations are a bit muddled and how trying to reconcile Money and Art is possible, but might lead you down some dead ends and twisty roads before you get anywhere.

Which I think has left me somewhat more comfy.

How about you, loyal readers and automated web bots? Any empty dharmas that have stared you in the face until you managed to look at them differently?

French Sealing the Dog

Yesterday I felt like a can of smashed assholes. Decallage horaire, a weekend of road food, a man cold, and well, the weather was shitey.

All day I could barely work for more than a few minutes at a stretch, so busy was I pleasuring the canine.

(image credit - e-spirations which actually had some good advice right under the dog photo...)

Despair mounted.

It doesn't take much to knock the wind out of you. To feel discouraged. It can lead to a touch of negative introspection - I lack clear goals, I have no discipline, bla mega boring bla.

Now, I do lack clear goals - and this post was going to be, what the internet shills call "A call to action" for the five to six of you non bots who might be reading this. A call to ask 'What the hell in all this mess holds any interest for you?"

I start many projects but get discouraged. I have an almost physical aversion to actually being serious about my goals. The one or two grants I've applied for have been so last minute, so poorly executed it was like I was purposefully sabotaging myself.

Which I probably was.

I've constructed this narrative, which is far from original, in which I will be discovered for my own genius, without slooting myself at all (i.e without any actual real effort), and the world will rain praise and riches upon me. So I start half baked projects like The Beaver, or Self-Help for Losers, The Young Poodles Movie, etc. and while I'm proud of some of it, I get discouraged and try something new. Hey! Blogging…

It is both the rankest, freshest, and oldest bullshit in the world. The insecure creative's wish to be swept to greatness without having had to expose themselves to the world.

So here it is. Having reached my late early early forties I know my approach needs to be tweaked.

I need to set clear achievable goals, find people to help hold me accountable to them, and then execute. Because it's always so satisfying when a real world deadline looms and you go through despair, resistance, reluctant application and onto victory and euphoria. I want to tap into some of that for my own projects.

So if you've got any advice let me know.

If there's any particular direction you think I should apply myself, let me know - just don't say accountancy, cause that's what Dad said for many years and I'd always ask myself if we'd just met.

And it's probably nothing to do with man's best friend, because after yesterday, she thinks we're running off to Vegas…

Fear feeds the Man

If you can scare people you keep them stupid. If they are stupid then you can take advantage of them. Have them juggling credit cards and debt to pay their monthly bills while you skim the fat coins off the top. All 1% like.

Several times in my life I've found myself juggling multiple loans, credit cards, back taxes, etc. Paying hundreds of dollars every month in vig.

And luckily, because perhaps I'm actually underneath it all fiscally conservative, I've actually been ok. I've been able to restructure and come out ahead. Sometimes its been a very close thing - but so far so good.

The main point is perhaps that we all spook easily. We whip out the easy credit to bridge this, or emergency repair that - and we watch paralyzed as our monthly expenses creep upwards. And the more terrified we get, the less we are able to see the forest for the trees. We start carrying around truly toxic levels of stress when a good set of objective eyes can cut through all the crap and tell us: take these three easy steps and you'll reduce your expenses by 10-15%. The difference between in that nice airy atmosphere above the waves, and that much more difficult to breathe liquidy stuff beneath it.

So - Fuck the Man! Sometimes life forces you to face stark choices - but the sooner you can detach yourself from your emotions - crawl out of the panic and find at least temporarily higher ground - the sooner you'll be able to see the best choices in front of you. Hell bankruptcy sure beats suicide. You hear the stories of the suicide epidemics after the Man has basically enslaved farmers in India. Don't let Him.

And don't hesitate to ask for help. An accountant or financial planner can see things with an objectivity and experience that even the most financially savvy individual will lack at times. Hell, I've said it before - resist the urge to do your own dentistry. Get the help you need. Before it kills you.

On posturing

Honesty - weakness - over sharing.
People like to be lied to. Told that everything is ok that this too shall pass, and love conquers all. In uncertain times they prefer a strong leader to a just leader - a George W over a John Kerry. It's human nature.

Posturing is an intrinsic part of the human experience. Hell, how about animalia?

Nearly all our interactions are a combination of honesty and dissimulation - some information needs to be accurate, but other information needs to be hidden. Show weakness and you become a target - just think ’high school’

And so we construct. We construct personas that we perform for the world, and psychological scaffolding to get us through the day.

Some of it is dialled in. There's nothing like the research on testosterone to shine a light on the ’mysteries’ or banalities of maleness - the impulsivity, aggression, but more interestingly how ’victories’ from combat to the craps table cause testosterone to surge predisposing the ’winner’ to engage in similar actions again.

So males take more risks - and at the risk of falling into the unscientific, of recounting an adaptive story that weaves a narrative based on possibility rather than falsifiability, it just so seems to confirm things we already knew.

And so posturing and dishonesty. If victory causes a physiological response that encourages you to repeat those actions that produced success, then cheating, lying, stealing, when successful are likely to be repeated.

You look at Facebook where nearly everything is superficial and you ask yourself is it a mistake to actually try and share what I think? That most if not all of what passes in the public sphere is rank bullshit because lying works? People don't like bad news - and I think of some of my friends who try and post bad news and how even I, who's read much of the same shit independently, often just don't want to hear it.

But I suppose for all of us there's only so much we can deal with - the looming disasters, our own mortality, can overwhelm if we take our hands off the next pint, or gaze too far into the future.

And I suppose that's ok - there's certainly nothing we can do about it. Evolution selected those who survived, and the niceties never really entered into it. So on the day to day do I always choose honesty, vulnerability, or display weakness? Hell no. But when I do I've got an advantage - I'm 6'2 and often 220 lbs - so people rarely call me on it.

Get your own valid XHTML YouTube embed code

Living with The Fear - or why honesty IS the best policy

12 years ago we got some bad news - the kind of scary stuff that makes you cry and worry and not eat. But it didn't kill us.

What it did do though is make Fear a daily part of our lives. I was thinking about this today because yesterday we visited our accountant and he literally said 'You're richer than you think' - he essentially told us to renovate the house, pay off all our debts and, well, live a little. And walking in there my guts had been more or less in knots because AGAIN I've not put aside enough taxes. I've had a personal relationship with the tax man longer than most people stay married, and having sailed through 2011 paying down my installments, 2012 was, well, a little less disciplined.

And so to have him say look at your bottom line, you're not doing badly, consider doing x y and z NOW because you'll have longer to enjoy it…really has done me a world of good - and probably knocked my blood pressure into the happy realm of High-Normal.

Which gets me back to The Fear.

When I was around 18 - 19 - 20, certain friends and I had this fun little game. We'd sit around boozing, and inevitably, because we were all prone to it, we'd start bad tripping each other. Little things, little worries, and before you knew it we'd basically provoke in ourselves localized anxiety attacks. Really great stuff, some of these guys are still among my best friends.

Maybe it's just youthful exploration - gazing into the Abyss to see if anything snaps at you, who knows? But in 2000 when we got actual bad news The Fear came back, and we've been living with it ever since.

And here is the thing - Fear and stress robs your brain of oxygen as the blood is diverted to the fight or flight responses. You literally become stupider. And lose the ability to spel. And so living in Fear means you are probably making bad decisions, not weighing alternatives appropriately, and otherwise fucking up your life.

I am, perhaps surprisingly, a naturally optimistic person. As much as Fear leads you to scarcity thinking - we don't have enough money, we can't take risks, we're all going to die, optimism leads you to abundance thinking. It's going to be ok, we should seize the day, we're all going to die so lets party wasted NOW while we can still pour a beer without shaking.

Now this leads me to not put aside my taxes and run a deficit - but it also led me to insist we buy the house when Mary was pregnant and I was TOTALLY unemployed. And buying the house is the SINGLE best financial decision we've ever made. Riding the property bubble has likely increased our net worth by more than well let's just say 'several' of my best years working.

So we can afford to think differently. And what it forces us to do is ask the question that's been going around Facebook - 'What would you do if money wasn't an obstacle?' - because we do have choices. We can invest in renovations, or going back to school. And this has always driven me a little nuts because I've 'invested' tons of money and time in various film projects that haven't been obviously profitable. I've spent months writing instead of working and not sold any scripts or pitches.

But I have managed a sort of career in the film business. And all that stuff I said yesterday about being an editor is only half of the story. I actually love editing. I love being trusted with someone's baby and pouring my heart into seeing it into the world. Does it satisfy my fragile little ego? No. I want to produce my own projects and find my own voice and bla fucking bla. But that's up to me. And I've never stopped dabbling. The Beaver may not be hilariously funny - but he COULD be. The Young Poodles Movie is not finished - but it was an honour to be able to film my friends and learn to love music as much as they do from them. And the reams of navel gazing I pour into the computer? Hell, maybe I should just hire an editor…

I was going to title this post 'Honesty is never the best policy' and that's because yesterday I was like "am I intentionally burning bridges? No one wants to hire an embittered pathetic wannabe" but today the world looks different. If you've got this far thank you. Buy a Young Poodle's tshirt if you like, or make a donation (there are actually no fries with the donation though for donations over $5 there could be…) And above all practice abundance thinking. Make choices out of Love and not out of Fear because we all have to live with our own mortality and that of EVERYONE EVER we've known and loved. So while life serves up some heavy shit it hasn't killed us yet, and its time it makes us stronger.

Fries with that?

Some $3.74 CAD More $13.94 CAD Shazam! $42.12 CAD Yahtzee! $86.33 CAD

or Moishes gift certificates.

Or there's some lovely shirts

On the fear of being pussy

There comes a time when you realize you're a pussy. That there are things you tell yourself you want but you don't take the risks to actually have them. Like stand up comedy - I'm a guy who gets some laughs at a party, but as any professional will tell you, its one thing to crack wise over wobbly pops and another to stand in front of an audience and entertain. It's a different dialogue is how HF put it - and it's an experiment that doesn't actually cost all that much - the cost, that stops me, is the work of writing some jokes and the risk of being embarrassed. As if I don't manage quite enough of that already by being a funny smart guy who doesn't risk much of anything.

Negative introspection, they say, isn't all that useful - but its a trope I've grown good at. THAT I've practiced…THAT I've written about - though having been told its unproductive I try and at least do the exercise of telling myself 'red flag' when I'm doing it and forcing myself on to something else. And so I've been here before and made deals with myself.

I've stopped worrying as much about posting shit on the internet - increasingly this navel gaving stuff because, guess what? - I'm introspective. I write this kind of stuff endlessly and exposing it to the world - or the 5 or 6 automated bots that crawl through my blog posts - is an act of self-exposure that I tell myself will thicken my skin to actually attempt 'real' writing on stuff other than the fluff in my navel.

But then I think of Woody Allen - who made a career out of his neuroses, and all the geniuses out there that tell you to write what you know. What I know is how easy it is to get wrapped up in yourself, in the endless questions, the empty dharmas that you know cognitively have no real 'answer' - there's nothing in your head that can actually simulate what will happen if you take action in the world.

Many, like 12 or more years ago, I told myself - alright, write 200 pages of stream of consciousness and then edit it. Well to avoid doing that I became a picture editor and honed my skills making sense of other people's bullshit (erm - awesome, concise, supremely beautiful material) - because a picture editor like an AD or any of the creative yet 'below the line' positions has the luxury of not really being responsible for the problem they are trying to solve. Generally a producer or a director hires an editor to either completely take on the writing and organizing of a movie (in the case of documentary) - and those are the projects I like, because I like writing and structuring and story editing, or to execute as best as possible the producer's and director's ideas. But you're doing it for a cheque, and if it's 'bad' - well, you didn't shoot it now did you? So the upside is a constructive detachment - which is why I recommend to all you producers and directors to hire an editor - objectivity AND craft is worth shelling out the candy - but the downside is lack of ownership. At the end of the day it's rare that the editor's role is ever mentioned, it's possible you don't get invited to the award shows, and with the passage of time, perhaps naturally, the final film begins to seem inevitable as if the chasm between what the producer and director dreamt and shot, and the final product never actually existed. Of course the movie needed a Lord of the Rings style opening, of course the title, tag line etc sprang fully formed onto the press materials.

So for me the 'cost' of editing is bitterness. Too pussy to really lead, I lead as much as I can in the editing, and then beat myself up that the pats on the head stop and people have moved onto other things.

Which gets me back to this mass of wallowing and self-absorption - oh wait, that's being negative - this mass of self-exploration and discovery which only slowly is seeing the light of day.

What's good about journal writing, stream of consciousness, etc, is that on any day, hopefully, you start repeating yourself - and that moment of recognition allows you a little detachment, to either look at what is bothering you in a different way, or to try and find the universal in what feels at the moment of writing, to be so deeply personal. So I know by the sheer weight of statistics that my bullshit is actually common. Not universal certainly, because we all vary along the gradients of introspective and extroverted, novelty seeking or conservative -- but sufficiently banal and common that 20% or even 2% of you know exactly what I mean. You might not express it in the same way, because, well, we're all somewhat odd ducks and I was actually dropped on my head in an age before kiddie knapsacks had five point safety harnesses.

And so that is my take away. To avoid just calling myself a pussy for not taking more chances like trying stand up, or pitching, or actually polishing anything I've written - I'm just airing my laundry on a blog. These silly questions - which amount I'm aware to long boring rationalizations for my actions or lack of actions - by exposure hopefully force me towards proactivity. I'm hoping it's a bit like AA. My name is John, and I like to gaze at my navel and then blame myself for not taking enough chances.

Get the Led out

Classic rock is many things, and of late I've hated CHOM because, well, I've heard it all so many times before - but there's a reason why at heart I'm a rocker and it's all tied up in how and when I was raised, who my friends were, and what we came to believe was the essence of manhood or even more broadly the essence of just being human.

It's not for everybody, that's for sure - if EVERYBODY was a rocker then there'd be no room for how it makes those people who are rockers feel special. There needs to be mods and punks and jesus freaks and jazz cats and electronica esotericists etc.
But coming of age in the mid to late eighties, as disco sputtered and died or morphed into pop and dance and emo, we were close enough to the 1970s to look at our cousins, the 'big kids', or whoever, to listen to Led Zeppelin and Black Sabbath and AcDc, Skynrd, CSNY, Lynrd Skynrd, bla bla bla, (just turn on CHOM), and want to identify with those people and that music.

There's a willfulness to rock - a lack of pretense - I've always hated prog and even much of Rush for taking the techniques of rock and gussying them up - I suppose it's the equivalent of baroque or roccoco if I could bother to figure out what those words mean. For young males, looking for models on how to assert ourselves in the world, rock provided a model. A kind of balls out 'going for it' that was not as aggressive or based in hurt as punk or death metal (though both genres fill those emotional needs quite nicely thank you), but much more just wilful and intentional. Does it rock? Do you rock? Do you want to rock?

And somewhere along the way, with the three kids, less than satisfying career, and the increasing indignities of middle age, you realize -- Mother Fucker! I have ceased to rock…if I ever came even within the foothills of real rocking I am now dangerously close to the shores of modern pop and similar candy coated cereals. I listen to Virgin in the car! - though granted not when I'm alone - and I've downloaded some of it to my iPhone. (Who doesn't love Gangnam ?)

So turning on CHOM today, and exceptionally not wanting to shoot myself in the head at their whole business model (make geezers like myself and older feel like we're still teenagers or at least aren't listening to AC) and they surprised me. There's no punch line because I forget the name of the song and maybe that's better because you can fill in your own Classic Rock Favourite - but it rocked, and for the few minutes it took to drive the minivan home after dropping off the skates the 8 yo had forgotten after dropping off the 4 yo and 23 mo, I felt like there was a chance I might rock again too. Someday. Maybe not today because there's the doctor and the job that makes me sad, then the stress fest that is dinner etc, but someday. That it was still possible. And that it was important to try, because rocking is how we are meant to live.
So I will leave you with Led Zeppelin.

Dilettantism

Whether it's short attention span, lack of rigour, being easily distracted by bright shiny objects, being an idea junkie or whatever, I have always been the kind of guy who has a pile of half read books next to the bed chasing after whatever has most recently caught my fancy.

Which is why I enjoy windbagging so much. Shooting the breeze, over the odd wobbly pop, lets you indulge the novelty seeking part of your brain, and the part that seeks social status from sharing - the combination that has made twitter and facebook so successful (see 'discovery is the new cocaine').

As a result I've started many projects only to abandon them at the first second or third sign of resistance. Internet marketing guru Seth Godin has written an interesting thing that I won't be able to find again about how to choose between projects we should abandon as early as possible - because, well, they're bad ideas - and projects that we should push past the resistance to complete. I'll post the link if I can find it again but haven't really internalized what he said so maybe it was full of shit anyway.(alright it was easy to find)

So as with all that is good and true in life, you frequently have to rediscover and relearn the basics every day. Like watching what you eat, what you spend, exercising - like using little tips and tricks like to do lists and pomodoros (the weird little 25 minute tomato timer thingy actually works, that's a BUY) … you need to practice righteousness basically. And each piece of the puzzle makes achieving the next piece easier. When you're hungover it's hard not to eat compulsively, when you're overspending its hard to make plans for the future that involve taking on financial risk…

I've often thought in terms of local minima and maxima

- the way physicists sometimes (or used to) describe space-time - how massive objects essentially distort the fabric of space via gravity, pulling smaller objects towards them. I've often thought life was like that - at any given moment, the sum of many factors determines how hard certain things are to achieve. When you're 90% of the way to the top of a hill it's easier to motivate to take another step than when you're contemplating the peak from the bottom.

In biology they talk of activation potentials in neurons.

That in order to fire, a neuron has to receive a certain threshold of stimulus. For instance the pain sensors in your brain send signals to pull your hand away if something is 'very hot' reflexively, but leave it up to other systems if it's just comfy.

This can also be described as inertia - the tendency of a body to keep doing what it's doing. If its sitting still you need to overcome inertia to get it going - if it's in motion, you need to overcome its inertia to make it stop. Which has its analogy in psychology like when people say 'I get more done when I'm busy' - because you're already in motion. Have only one or two things to do of a day, and you're watching tv in yesterday's underwear…(PHOTO DELETED)

All of which is to get back to taking action - and you can see from this bloated prose that I'm still mining the old navel - the need to practice decisiveness. To see things through.

Not to abandon reflection - because the unexamined life is not worth living and my jaw hits the floor how so many people seem to completely lack the capacity for self-questioning - but passivity is crap also. You can let yourself be swept onto the rocks, or exhaust yourself struggling against the stream. Or you can lash a couple of sticks together, stick your hand in and steer. You'll go over the waterfall eventually and merge back into the infinite, but you might get to visit a few more places of your choosing along the way.

The Young Poodles Movie Teaser Part III

Only 2 years 3 months and 6 days since this was "Coming Soon" here is the latest instalment of The Young Poodles Movie...



Warning: there's a lot of me in it more or less fretting.  Which is unusual for me, as you all know.

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Self-Involvement

I'm self-involved. I've spent countless hours writing stream of consciousness prose that at its best veers towards thinly veiled autobiography and at its worst is reams of me complaining about not making more of myself and the challenges of being born smart, male, white and privileged. Oh the horror of not having had to overcome adversity! The shit stinks but it's who I am.

So I'm very interested in the scientific study of motivation.

Recently a study came out that hit the lay press that says "If you want to achieve something, keep it to yourself, because telling others about our goals actually undermines the likelihood we'll achieve them" Something along the lines of bullshitting to our friends and loved ones about our big plans gives us a neurochemical jolt of "success" so we actually don't feel as driven to do the much harder work of acting on achieving our goals. I know that feeling. I've spent countless nights drinking with my good time buddies lying to each other about the movies we're going to make, the stand up comedy we'll perform, or the transformative and incredibly redeeming new direction we're about to embark on. And some of these ideas are fairly detailed and actionable. In the hands of non-bullshit artists they could have created several fortunes by now and probably incidentally cured cancer.

A second bit of science or what passes in the lay press as science that's been making the rounds is that listening to people complain makes us stupid. Some kind of study has been done in which people's mental acuity was tested, they were then exposed to someone complaining, and when they tried the maze again they starved before finding the cheese. Holy does this mean I have to thin out my rolodex and unfriend a whack of face bookers! Or apply for special parking as I list to full dimmer.

Because, shockingly, amongst my hard drinking brilliant yet unsuccessful intimates, next to dreaming in colour is bitching, and it's a less than Amazing Race to know which we've indulged in more vigorously.

Now the silver lining of all this is forewarned is forearmed, and like with negative introspection and depression, knowing these things are bad gives us some leverage to avoid them. In my reams of self involved journal writing I've 'flagged' negativity - when I've found myself bitching in circles I'll write 'red flag' and take a moment to step back and move onto something else. I've learned also to practice gratitude - if there's one thing I've learned from the shit storm that holding a family of five together can put you through is to be grateful for what you have. Because we'll all be dead soon and whatever passes for our family life could easily blow up and find us spread to the four winds or worse. So I practice being grateful.

And as for not bullshitting about my plans and being more proactive? That one I'm not sure if I've developed actual better practices for. I put more stuff out in the world - that's progress - I've learned to accept that my process to date involves a lot of navel gazing but that if I gaze long enough I grow tired of describing lint and move onto more shaped material.

I may never be decisive and constantly in motion - but I am kind of suspicious of people like that anyway. Most decisions that are worth a good god damn should be thought about pretty thoroughly. Charging forward for the sake of moving is kind of Kardashian. There are countless examples of celebrities who's need for attention so eclipses what they actually have to offer the world that they are essentially just flinging shit on the walls and hollering for people to notice.

So perhaps I'll keep muddling. I'm english after all, apparently it's something we're known for.

The limits of empathy

I am agreeable to a fault. I have a strong need to be liked, and so am affable and self-deprecating when at times the world would be better served by my being more of an asshole.

Reams of self-help advise us to stop worrying about what other people think of us, and while I've internalized some of that advice with regards to the generation of nonsense, I've got a long way to go with the more global not giving a shit about the feelings of others.

Because while caring about the feelings of others can be a very useful and constructive skill, there are also times when what we imagine other people are feeling stops us from doing something we want to or should. Situations when, in fact, we have no actual idea if the other person cares at all about what we are doing.

I think of this most often domestically, when I want to go to my cave and write or otherwise play and yet I either stop myself or end up spending my time psychically conflicted imagining Smith wants me to be doing something 'productive' - even on days when she's not actually expressed an opinion either way.

This is where if you want to make time for creativity you have to stake your ground. For yourself first, and for those around you as well -- what's trite in all this for students of self-help is that it's repeating a fairly basal level of advice - but as with all the fruits of experience there is a world of difference between reading or hearing about the benefits of planting some fruit trees, and actually biting the fruit from the trees you have planted. In other words - there's knowing the path and walking the path.

And the reason as best as I can tell is the gap between what we know consciously and what we've internalized unconsciously, or emotionally. We can know that exercise or setting aside time for creativity with no distractions are the tried and tested methods of achieving health or productive goals, but until we've trained our limbic systems to actually perform these tasks, until we've put the idea into practice, and then repeated it until our neurons map the performance of the task with experiencing the reward, it's a hell of a hill to climb on the day to actually walk the walk.

It's exactly like riding a bike, or any of the millions of other tasks we have to learn that are really hard to perform consciously, but, once learned, we hardly ever have to think of again. And it's down this road - of practice practice practice, that flow becomes possible. Being in a state of high performance with little to no involvement of the conscious mind.

Which is as best as I can tell, one of the major gateways to happiness. And leads to comfy.

Shooting the Censor

The Case against my inner censor took years to build, and while the sentiment of the court in the end was clear for all to hear - "shoot the bastard! up against the wall!" the spin out from his execution has yet to resolve itself. While the Censor may have been shot square in the face, it is still somewhat unclear whether another, perhaps more powerful one has taken his place, or if the bureaucracy of my bullshit is such that I continue to avoid the point of all this out of habit, if less out of raw fear.

Better a bad artist than a loser. Because while some bad artist's may be losers, it is far less likely that most losers can even lay claim to being bad artists.

The snob's dilemma, the argument from fear, all the excuses in the world for self-censorship are painful to work through - to be discarded quickly if you can - and maybe it's just a lifetime of inadequate testosterone? Lacking the balls to just take the risk of looking stupid. Because by all accounts more than a few people seem to live what for them appear to be relatively adequate lives while radiating, no, sometimes indeed, glorying in their stupidity. Take the conservatives, just to grab a group out of the air.

So the puppet's back - and I've started singing. And sweet Jay Z H Christ, it's got some room to, erm, mature. But the song I recorded yesterday sounds way better than the one from last week - and I like to believe it's really quite ridiculous. And that's kind of the point isn't it? All of this life is quite ridiculous. We get pushed or carved out of our moms, we spin around the sun for awhile, and then we die. More often than not really fucking terribly. So am I happy to have recorded a version of the Ballad of Happy Forest, where the Beaver and Beavette sing about their love for each other and the righteousness of diverting small waterways? All the while knowing that the bulldozers of the Evil Doer Stephen Harper are about to descend upon their boreal idyll destroying it forever? Separating Beaver from a now visibly pregnant Beavette, who for all he knows is dead with so many other of the forest animals? Yup.

Nonsense, glorious nonsense, and it would be funny if it wasn't actually so serious, and well, if it was written a little better and someone sent me a voice coach, or, well, sang it for me. But what's the fun of that?

Getting wise(r) - sometimes you don't need to find your voice

One of the best parts of being a geezer is that a lot of the things that held you back when you were younger drop away. Like not putting out work because you're too embarrassed what other people are going to think.

As the years pile on you start to realize there's a million and one empty dharmas like this. A million and one excuses for not taking action - I know, I've made lists.

And then you stop caring. "Better a bad artist than a loser" Bruno said, and it's true. The best part of putting out work that's questionable or not ready? It IS embarrassing - and that discomfort is powerful. Because it means the next time you want to do better.

People have started saying "you have to embrace failure". And you do. Because there's no rational thought process that allows you to learn how to do something. The process is practice - not thinking about practice. So here's my questionable singing, with a song I didn't exactly over write. But it forced me to jerry rig (your honor can I take the jury rig option ?) a green screen and work through the process - learned a little garage band too along the way.

Happy with the product? That's beside the point. Eager for the next one to be better and having learnt way more than by bailing? Well, I think I'll be collecting on those lifesavers.