Flossing might save the World

All of our wonderful technologies can't save us without a clear moral tool box for making the right decisions.

Advances in green technology make equitable choices easier - if we can bring electricity to new places while not enslaving the 'beneficiaries' then that changes the trajectory of human civilization - it tilts our searing landscape towards progress - but without the inner technologies - the ethical systems, philosophical rigour of acting justly - taking full responsibily for the consequences of our lifestyles and actions, they are useless.


'Humanity has all the technology it needs to live justly and sustainably'
The only technology humanity needs to live in peace is a stronger moral compass.  If we all took 20 minutes a day to study philosophy or meditate - to quiet the fears and anxieties that drive our greed and selfishness, we could look around and see: oh we can stop climate change while redistributing wealth, strengthening democracy, and lifting billions out of poverty.  The wellness of my neighbour directly increases my own health and safety and liberates all the resources spent on wars to lift humanity out of scrabbling and fighting in the dirt and upwards towards the stars.

Each of us needs to stare Death in the teeth, and floss.  We're going to die, but we won't live in Fear, and when we pass it will be with a full set of chompers.

(image from Ottawa Dental Care)
So do not give into Fear.  Know that we already possess the tools to build a better world and the moral, philosophical and spiritual systems to use them.  And then act righteously.

Know that if you spend money on vanities we see you are insecure.

If you feel the need to dominate it's because you are too afraid to submit yourself to a higher purpose.

That humility, gratitude and effort opens yourself to life everlasting.

That anyone who has learned to not live in Fear has already found Heaven and immortality.

So stop being an asshole - we're all douchebags, from time to time, but we know we can do better.

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.

Seize the mother french sealing day

Driving kids down to garderie, post decent weekend despite Saturday conflict with 8 yo and then 8 yo puking everywhere during the night, I tasted victory.

It's a funny thing - the almost tangible feeling of confidence, to deconstruct, and possibly burst the balloon, equal parts recent exercise, domestic harmony, not drinking, effort, etc…

The recipe doesn't entirely matter - it does, to try and maintain or replicate it, but I'm also moving to something else here…

The thing with confidence and optimism is that it changes both how you perceive the world and how you act in it - as I walked back to the minivan having forced the kids to listen to The Immigrant Song (BBC studio version) but then turning on top 40 afterwards to quiet their rebellion, I thought to myself 'I'm just getting started - I haven't even brought my A game yet' - I'm parathinking, but it was something similarly sports themed…a real sense of how my efforts to date can be surpassed by my efforts in the future.

And it was due in part to having posted a video about my yellow teeth. I've always had teeth of colour - and don't exactly live a coffee and other staining substances free lifestyle.



Once each new hygienist stops vomiting down her sleeve and suggests there's something I could do about it, I tell them that eventually my narcissism will overcome my miserliness - but not yet.

The point is that I'm finally being directly bullied by advertising and Crest can go french seal themselves. Knowing rationally the harm our hyper sexualized and violence fetishizing culture does everyday to women (and men), it's cliche but true that it's only when you or yours are directly attacked that it becomes personal.

Which is also why I like living in Quebec - one of the most pleasant places for a 6'2" white guy to enjoy the slightest sense of being victimized and discriminated against within driving distance of the grandparents.

So my buddy said "Not even hiding behind the Beaver proxy, you must be really angry" -- which was cool because I was annoyed enough by the ads to act - though it was more about wanting to see if the gods of You Tube virality would react, than for justice for people with teeth of colour. (note: so far You Tube does NOT give a shit) - but it was more interesting to me because I've been hiding behind my puppet, while knowing that I'm trying to back myself into making real efforts.

Now the 'feeling' of optimism needs to be channeled into action.

Too often I've celebrated feeling good by drinking myself into its opposite. It's kind of like the science that says "Don't tell people about your plans" - when we tell people about our plans, we get a little hit of neurochemical pleasure, that as often as not discourages us from actually attempting our plans, because of all the less pleasant work required to advance them.

I suppose, if I'm honest, this stream of consciousness bloviating and my puppet videos fall into the same category. Some "effort" but really kind of bullshit measured against say, Tolstoy or Jim Henson.

(Which gets us to the snob's dilemma, one of the long list of empty dharmas that stand in the way of our productivity, but that's for another day.) {and which has been dealt with poetically by Ira Glass ...Ed. March, 2014}

THE GAP by Ira Glass from frohlocke on Vimeo.

So the thing is it's Monday and there are things to do - I recognize there are changes that need to be made - clean up or move out of the basement dungeon office, set longer term goals than twenty minute blog posts and 30 second phone videos - seek worthwhile professional challenges, but practice gratitude and reinforce those practices that have let me enjoy an amuse bouche of the taste of victory.

Because the good of each moment can undo the evil of a thousand years. Or so the Buddha told me.

Parties over

While parties are fun, cleanup doesn't have to be a drag.




and if you've given yourself an electrolytic imbalance, may I suggest a healthful superfood smoothie?




#superfood

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.

Pop and Unpop Psychology Links

March 28


Looking for evidence therapy works - guess what? Cognitivie Behaviour therapy yes, if done correctly

Is giving the secret to getting ahead? NYTimes On Adam Grant and the psychology of giving

Oh Selfish Me(me)

There was an interesting article in the Atlantic called “The Selfish Meme” by Frank Rose
That describes research on how people's reward centres get activated by talking about themselves. Finally! A way to label self-involvement as addiction - the skies opened and the sun shone forth.

I mean if the glove fits...

Most of us know people who really can't stop talking about themselves. Christ, I love talking about myself, but I can a least function in polite society. I've certainly been recognizing how if I don't get my fix though, if I go out looking to bitch or otherwise soliloquize, and my careful “plan” is derailed by there being strangers present, it sours my mood - and can lead to antisocial behaviour like cranking up the sarcasm and general low level sadism.

Hell this blog is all about a semi desperate middle aged attempt to garner some attention - with a thin excuse of “well maybe other people will recognize something of themselves in it”. Or maybe it's more onanistic? Just the act of “over” sharing setting off some pleasure centres in my brain?

And could that be how the whole situation evolved? Why is it pleasant to talk about ourselves? Well, we know experientially that it relieves stress to share what is eating at us, we can do a secchi disk on our current depth of crazy, we can validate hypotheses about the world etc...and for the species this sharing may well be adaptive because vicarious experience does still have value. After seeing “Leaving Los Vegas” I was able to tell Smith “Well, at least between me and Cage’s character there's Kosovo...”

The car wrecks from the lives of others are at least road side memorials intimating we pay a little more attention driving quite so drunk around life's curves.

And I suppose why I liked the article so much - in addition to kind of universalizing my own addictive behaviours around FeelBad and Twatter, is the more general clues it gives to aspects of our motivations.

Why is working for others often unrewarding? Because it doesn't trigger the pleasure centres of when we’re self involved -- why do some people “need” to be the centre of attention? Well let's hook some pop stars up to fMRIs and find out. I suspect their self-stimulating centres aren't as strong as the average, so they need more validation from the outside world. Just like thrill seekers aren't as capable of self-excitation as their more anxiety prone compatriots.

Is this information useful? I think so - when I break down the things that really get my ass in motion - the chance to drink and windbag - maybe what I'm really experiencing is a fairly easily understood nexus of habits that trigger my reward centres.

And maybe, just , maybe that suggests there's ways to get the same high, with fewer units of alcohol. Possibly by actually producing artifacts that embody my experiences in a form that triggers something in others, sending me positive attention in return.

I must go and discuss this with Withnail at once. Withnail & I (Widescreen)


Except I still haven't purged sufficiently from the last time.

Commitment

How do we cultivate for ourselves and our personal projects the same level of commitment we can maintain in our relationships - personal and professional, with others?

How can we construct feedback mechanisms - because dollars to timbits the science and anecdotal experience seems to suggest that any behavioural modification succeeds or fails depending on how we tweak our actions in response to the feedback we receive from ourselves and the world - to maximize our chances of success?

And this isn't rocket macrame. Billions of you are better at this than me, and billions worse.

There's a great quote by Fellini in 'I'm a born liar'


where he says something to the effect of "Making movies is hard. The only reason I do it is because someone gives me an advance, I spend it, and I don't want to pay it back."

That's an external motivation. The psychologist Deci breaks down motivation into something like 7 categories from the purely extrinsic - like coercion - to the purely intrinsic - when we act in accordance with our internal values.

I've not read this book:



but some of his scholarly stuff is on the web.


And there's plenty of others like it - it's why life coaches, business coaches and therapists stay in business. You pay someone to hold you accountable. Hopefully, until they teach you how to do it for yourself - but will they? That puts them out of business. Is the moral hazard in private shrinkage the shrinks incentive to keep you coming back? I don't know. Any of you 'graduate' from therapy?

On the other hand name me an Olympian who doesn't have a coach?

So while I like cutting corners, it's unlikely I'm going to be credited with reinventing the wheel.

I had told myself - 'ok, you want numbers? Try putting twice the time into one of these blog posts rather than composing them on the toilet while the kids are screaming in the kitchen' -- well, that's a plan for another day.

But for now I'm just leaving the question out there.

I'm looking for best practices for maintaining commitment to personal goals. Hell, even identifying worst practices would be something.

Bueller?

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"

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…

Rose tinted glasses

Many times, when the bullets are flying, I try and make a joke or otherwise 'keep it light'. I am either a world class diplomat, or Chamberlain - appeasing rather than confronting, avoiding unpleasantness rather than dealing with problems head on.

Perhaps in order to protect my self, I'm constantly telling myself stories how things are ok, or, if we are hurtling off a cliff to certain doom, we are at least trying to plant an ice pick in the cornice - at least struggling to survive.

And I know how fucking annoying optimists - or, worse, people feigning optimism, can be.

But does it help?

I think it does. I think it can amount to cognitive behavioural therapy - that active optimism is at least partially an intentional stance where no matter what the data, you look for a positive interpretation. I think for me it's necessary - if not sufficient. Because I've crept close to the edge of the cliff and taken a peek at the Abyss. I've had mild experience with the Fear and depression - and from what I know about neural plasticity - how the things our brains experience repeatedly or practice changes our neural pathways, resisting negativity can actually change how you see the world.

And how you see the world pretty much determines the types of choices you make.

I don't claim to make the best choices. I read a very interesting post (link) recently how procrastination is essentially a neurotic hangup where the fear of failure creates reward pathways for any and all activities that avoid the risk of failure - like never finishing anything that could be judged harshly. And I think that's a 'choice' I make too often.

But what I do think is that with a little objectivity and detachment we can change. And that cultivating optimism and gratitude gives us enough of a tactical advantage - enough serotonin or dopamine or whatever, to actually have the courage to attempt harder things, that wallowing in negativity would not.

So has it given me enough chutzpah to light the world on fire? Well, global warming may yet take care of that.

And while we're all hurtling somewhere - we're not dead yet, and that makes me hopeful.

I saw her boob - and it wasn't at the Oscars

I support a woman's right to breastfeed anywhere she damn chooses and it took me twenty minutes to realize this morning that any discomfort I feel 'not knowing where to look' falls into the more general category in the 'How boys need to behave' handbook of 'Be conscious when you're staring at a woman's breasts'

So Smith was on a much deserved night away and I'd managed to get the kids to their institutions without any overly serious altercations.

We cruise into the garderie and a fairly hippy academic type is breastfeeding big time on one of the benches we sit the kids to get their boots off.

I was ticked. I was all 'I've had three kids that were breastfed semi-publicly where am I supposed to look?'…I furiously averted my eyes and was annoyed to have to do so. Getting the kids changed is a hassle at the best of times and now I have to work around this…this…this public display of maternal love and affection? But I didn't get there at first.

So I started thinking: ok, rationally I support a woman's right to breastfeed, but should she 'cover up' or otherwise 'act with more decorum' - and it bothered me. So I started thinking about 'provocation' - is she being aggressively mega hippy? Should she be conscious of my discomfort and change her actions accordingly? And so the broader questions - what is provocative? Our actions clearly influence each other but is anyone responsible for the reactions their actions trigger in others? And I was thinking about slutwalk, and hijabs, and the whole patriarchal bullshit that intellectually usually seems so simple, but confronted with this woman breastfeeding, when I was SLIGHTLY stressed with having to change two children - threw all that logico-deductive stuff out the window.

Anyhow - it took me awhile to figure the whole thing out. At first I was angry, and then a little later I realized I was INTERESTED, and not in the 'I'd like to read a long boring text about this' way.


(image from KORA Organics, so credit where credit is due)

And that led to whatever 'breakthrough' I think I might of had.

'Confronted' with this woman breastfeeding, I didn't know where to look. And only twenty minutes later did I realize that probably where I WANTED to look was, well, you decide…

And so that's when I saw that my discomfort was just a tiny little part of the dance we all play with each other everyday. What is and is not acceptable behaviour. And so finally I realized that 'don't stare' - and especially 'don't stare at a woman's breasts unless you're pretty sure it's the right time to do so' is just BASIC 'how to avoid being gelded' behaviour.

Is it acceptable to breastfeed in public? Absolutely. Is it rude to stare? Most of the time. Am I going to sneak a peek? Of COURSE not…

And don't tell Smith, she's supposed to be relaxing.

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.

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.

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.

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.