Repair vs replace

In grade four for some reason I came across the idea of perpetual motion. We had some weird teachers - 'Tante Pauline' once stuck a pin through her hand in front of me, I *think* to teach me something about heartache (my crush had moved on to another boy). Anyhow - perpetual motion machines preoccupied me for quite some time.

I remember we had some kind of gardening project and I wanted to make a self-contained 'jungle' with some dandelions and uprooted maple seedlings I had planted in a tupperware. If I could only cover it with plastic wrap or something wouldn't that be cool?

This was just after Skylab had reentered the atmosphere - a heady time when my greatest hope was for a chunk of the space station to land in my backyard, or somewhere else safe, but accessible.

Anyhow - the self-contained ecosystem didn't pan out, though one of the seedlings now shades my parents house, but there was a lingering impact on my psyche. I suppose something analogous to Platonic ideals - the notion of perfectibility, some crap like that.

So for years 'repair vs replace' has puzzled me.

We inherited my parents 1985 Saab 900 around 2002 or so (fact check needed) - and in my 'forms irrational attachments' psychological framework I dreamt I would restore it and that it would last forever. Eventually, after 1) leaking gas 2) having the forward tilting hood flip up at speed 3) overheating 4) $2000 of swedish brakes 5) the inner lining starting to dangle like in some 50s harem movie 6) screwy electrical system that sometimes meant the car just stopped 7) the front bumper just falling off one day, and a few other things, the nail in the coffin was a one two punch of a) the seatbelt that held the baby’s car seat disintegrating (luckily with no baby in car) and b) a dead battery just as winter was starting with all the fun of constantly having to move the car to dodge snow removal.

I walked the keys to the garage and I believe paid $50 for the scrap guy to haul it away.

Now you savvy business types probably have some kind of fancy formula like "if costs of maintenance > cost of financing new vehicle, replace the vehicle" - but it took me a long time to think that way.

And now I recognize I handle other existential questions with a similar level of active self-confusion.

Like for twenty years I've wondered if I need to go back to school, switch careers, or otherwise reinvent myself, yet plod along in the so called entertainment business not really making serious money, but with enough open bars and interesting people to keep rolling forward.

It comes down to god knows what - indecisiveness? A belief that it is better to slowly evolve than attempt revolutionary change (curse you BSc, I should have studied poli sci)

But the fact remains that I still want to ’make movies’ or write or otherwise masturbate publicly - and know that my major obstacle is commitment. Some Facebook friends posted a photo of the size of their latest grant application and it just screamed at me ’you’re not actually serious...’

So what? Now that I know that self-involvement is demonstrably neurochemically pleasurable (link) I’ll stick with that for awhile. And who knows? Indulging in something pleasurable that actually sees me produce a thing or two might be as close to a perpetual motion machine as I'm ever likely to get. Just watch out if I ask you to pass the Kleenex...

Always keep building

Started reading “The $100 Startup”
. which tells the stories of many entrepreneurs’ experience starting businesses with next to no money - a lot of ’solopreneurs’ etc...looking for a touch of inspiration, and it's provided some. I like books like this - they tickle the “time to take action” part of your brain - at the very least its a momentary dose of optimism, and at best they change your life. Only a couple chapters in so who knows...

So we’re at red slide park - it's been awhile - it's covered in ice and I've got the boys - we need something to do - we start to build.

Building whatever provides direction - tasks get parcelled out - you fetch ice, I'll build, he’ll be the dump truck ... You're improvising but with a sort of goal - creating a touch of order out of the materials at hand. You run out of materials, you have to go farther afield, “this is why people end up exploring, because they run out of stuff where they are”
You try and keep everyone happy “he's not doing anything. If he doesn't do any work I'm going to come over there and kill you”
Boys, so charming...

You try and make everything an object lesson. “If a wall collapses that's ok, we'll build it again stronger its an experiment”

It keeps you busy. Until it doesn't.

Until its time for the next thing. People get bored, hungry, cranky - it ends, if you're lucky you see it coming and get out in front of it. We hit a wall it turned to shit.

But I've been reading another book - “How to raise your kid without raising your voice” and its the same thing.
A hit of optimism, some takeaway that works...we make it home without a missing persons and throw some calories into the mix.

Later it's a train track. And to make it “epic” I suggest a log cabin that the train will pass through...and they build it. The big one gets it most of the way, but the little one suggests raising it on pads - the solution that makes it function.

It's more than just surviving. We hit black ice, a bunch of times, strong emotions were experienced. But we kept building - with a little Netflix in between, sure.

And it was good. And it's what we're doing - even when I lose sight of the road in the shitstorms.

We're building. Our lives together.

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"

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…

Dust in a sunbeam

So many times, like now, I’ve wanted to “be productive” without actually acting wilfully. I am an almost wilfully unwilful person - I have this aversion to over planning (Smith might suggest I have an aversion to under or “any” planning) - but instead enjoy a random walk approach to creativity. Start typing and see if it goes anywhere, doodle, screw around in photoshop or whatever new software has gotten my attention.

Often, like now, there's an associated excuse - I’m tired or hungover, or tired and hungover, or burnt from work or whatever - with the passage of years I’ve learned what that part of it is is that impulse control goes down and compulsivity goes up when you’re fatigued - so it's harder to focus than usual.

So I let the typer take me where it may, and if I am lucky - or more accurately, if I’ve been writing with any degree of consistency or discipline, I get “somewhere” faster.

I call it the foothills of competence - the real slightly rolling green fields of actual effort that real workers have passed through years before. You are starting to exert yourself, but so minimally that you hardly notice it.

Any accomplished artist will likely tell you some version of the importance of just showing up. Of maintaining some form of discipline so that you are at least stretching your creative muscles in some consistent form each day. A great recent version of this for writers was how if you force yourself to write no matter what mood you are in, you will write when you are happy and sad, tired and excited, and that exercise - of writing in all those different states, will give you access to different ideas and feelings, mental states, than if you just write, or play music, or sculpt when you “feel like it”.

I’m working on my discipline. I’ve always been working on my discipline, and I want to get passed the foothills and really start exerting myself to climb some kinds of mountains. But I recognize too I’m like a cat on the floor. Stretching my claws out reaching for dust in a sunbeam. Not actually hunting, but still curious - trying to get somewhere, but staying where it's comfy. Knowing the sun will set and I’ll have to move, just not yet. Or at least not very quickly.