Craig Constantine

Wait wat

After ending on a startlingly inconclusive note in 1991, Twin Peaks returned in 2017 to extend the story for one more season. Yet audiences who’d hoped for a traditional ending were again denied one. Again, Lynch seemed to be imploring them to stop seeking clarity and embrace the moments whose overarching connections are far less obvious. What mattered to him, it appears, was the experience itself: the feelings they evoked, the uncanny images whose significance were difficult to parse yet impossible to forget. David Lynch didn’t want to leave his viewers with an interpretation, but with something more visceral—like the taste of cherry pie and a cup of hot coffee, black as midnight on a moonless night.
~ Emma Stefansky, from David Lynch Captured the Appeal of the Unknown

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I watched Twin Peaks in real time on ‘ol broadcast TV. It bent my brain in the best way possible. But . . . there’s another season?! Shut up and take my money— I was reading this, thinking it was simply interesting. Until I got to this line… excuse me while I run to whatever streaming service it takes . . .

Potent paper and pen

18 Days Ago

Paper is good. Somehow, a blank page and a pen makes the universe open up before you. Why paper has this unique power is a mystery to me, but I think we should all stop trying to resist this reality and just accept it.
~ “Dynomight,” from Paper

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Paper is good is a colossal understatement. The magic of writing comes from being forced to slow down; One has to hold on to a single-sentence sized thought long enough to write it. You’ve never held one thought, clearly in mind, for 10 seconds… unless you were writing it down.

Slow down

19 Days Ago

[I]t’s important to have a sense of urgency. But there’s a difference between urgency and rushing, hurrying, going quickly for the sole sake of speed. There is an old Latin expression that I think captures the balance here nicely: Festina Lente, which means, Make haste slowly. A sense of urgency…with a purpose. Energy plus moderation. Measured exertion. Eagerness, with control. It is about getting things done, properly and consistently. They like to say in the military that slow is smooth and smooth is fast.
~ Ryan Holiday, from These Are Leadership Ideas I Try To Apply Every Day

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This is just one, from a long list of great ideas. I’ve been thinking and mentioning festina lente ever since I first learned about it.

Consider: How do you handle the tension between quality and consistency?

20 Days Ago

We’re told to “just ship it,” but also to “make it great.” Where do you draw the line? When do you prioritize polish, and when do you hit publish?

I had to learn—the way you learn to ride a bicycle: do it over and over, the “principle” of the thing doesn’t help you do the thing—that the tension is a good sign. Now when I feel the tension between quality and consistency I know I’m in the correct place.

This morning, I’m thinking about a rowing metaphor: One oar is quality and the other is consistency. Pull evenly and the boat goes straight-ish. Also, if you try to row too hard, you get exhausted. The best way to make long-term progress is to row these two things, in balance, at a sustainable pace.

First, balance

21 Days Ago

Well, I trust that if I’ve got a night’s sleep, if possible, and have had something to eat, and have worked on the part, I can kind of just show up. It’s of course a case-by-case basis, depending on the part and the scene. But just put some attention and some good honest effort into trying to solve the puzzles of the scene and it will work out, without overly trying to inflate my condition, my inner thinking and feeling — without overly abusing myself.
~ Jeff Goldblum, from Jeff Goldblum – The Talks

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I do love that the first item on that list is sleep. But yes, absolutely, there’s magic in preparing, and then letting go of that preparation. In thinking: I’m prepared, smiling, and looking forward to this adventure.

On the other hand

22 Days Ago

Along the way, over years of practice, I lost faith that awareness was always curative, that resolving childhood trauma would liberate us all, that truly feeling the feelings would allow them to dissipate, in a complex feedback loop of theory and practice.
~ Niklas Serning, from I am a better therapist since I let go of therapeutic theory

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I read somewhere that what likely makes any therapy work is the effort one puts into creating the relationship with the therapist. Striving to be a better person seems to lead to—wait for it—slowly becoming a better person. To that end, I recommend deploying tools like discovery and reflection to attempt to ground your self-assessment in reality, and to give yourself a force multiplier for the incremental insights.

Immersive

24 Days Ago

You stand back and in a way, the reason it’s interesting is because it stands out, it doesn’t fit in, it doesn’t look like anything you’ve seen. But this is not really my position — generally. There might be moments where such a performance is necessary but we like to find a stronger relationship between the familiar and the unfamiliar. My feeling is that when a building is too self-referential, the audience is distanced; architecture becomes something that you look at. [Like in a cathedral or a monument?] Right, it’s a spectacle — whereas I think for 99% of the time, architecture is something that you should be inside and absorbed by. It’s something which convinces you by experience more than impresses you by image.
~ David Chipperfield, from David Chipperfield – The Talks

I think that tension exists in any creative endeavor. Perhaps, the existence of that tension is what defines something as being creative?

Scheduling is the important thing

25 Days Ago

Set a recurring date on your calendar to get together. And then stick to it.

Some people might find this tactic a little soulless and formal, the same way that some couples deride the idea of scheduling sex. Yet when your life is ruled by your phone and nothing gets done unless it ends up on a to-do list, booking repeat friend dates is practical—a way to carve out real time not just for errands and work, but also for engaging with the people you love.
~ Serena Dai, from The Easiest Way to Keep Your Friends

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I once had a long-running dinner with a few of my cousins and our spouses. We all liked to have dinner in, rather than out… but we couldn’t settle on a strict schedule. So instead, we made sure to start each gathering by having the “when do we next meet” discussion? :) Sure it took time to do that, but it has the advantage that everyone is in the room. We’d end up planning 4 or more weeks out, but it got on the calendar every time. And yes, we stopped because the last time we met up, we didn’t plan the next time.

Not sorry

26 Days Ago

Sorry — too little time left.
~ Richard Avedon, from Creative People Say No

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Well, there’s someone who has it figured out.

Consider: What does a sustainable podcasting routine look like for you?

27 Days Ago

This is a perennial struggle for me. My ability to imagine things that I’d like to create, vastly and consistently exceeds my ability to actually create.

The standard advice is to narrow one’s focus. Choose one thing to focus on— especially if we’re talking about charging for a product. But even more generally, in podcasting, the standard advice is to choose one thing… one show… one format…

I’ve come to the conclusion that I am not that sort of creative. A while back I stood up a new “home” for myself on the Web at craigconstantine.com and as I was deciding what to put there, this occurred to me:

I create a ton of free, public stuff. Each of my current projects is its own rabbit hole to explore.

After decades of struggle against my own nature, I’ve given up trying to focus on just one thing. Instead, I’ve learned to relax—or at least, to be slightly more relaxed. When the creative energy is flowing, I channel it. And sometimes I simply pause.

That’s how I keep my podcasting sustainable. I create processes and move things along when I feel engaged and motivated. And sometimes I pause.

Many podcasters burn out. What’s a pace that actually works for you? How would your show change if you prioritized sustainability over growth?

Resistance is futile

28 Days Ago

Dinner resists optimization. It can be creative, and it can be pleasurable. None of this negates the fact that it is a grind. It will always be a grind. You will always have to think about it, unless you have someone else to think about it for you, and it will always require too much time or too much energy or too much money or some combination of the three. It is unrelenting, in the way that breathing is unrelenting. There is freedom in surrendering to this, that even in this golden age of technological progress, dinner refuses to be solved.
~ Rachel Sugar, from Dinner Is Terrible

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I agree with Sugar. Somewhere along the way I learned that leaning into the mundane parts of meal preparation is actually what I need to do more often. I tend to get very head-down doing and that’s not healthy when it’s protracted hours upon hours. Instead, pre-planning when I’m supposed to stop doing and go work on the meal always results in my spending some meditative time in the ‘ol kitchen. Combined with “simple food, simply prepared”—fresh or raw ingredients, reduced combinations of flavors, smaller quantities, visually interesting—I feel I’m making some progress towards health and mental wellness in one activity.

Feeling motivated?

29 Days Ago

Remember, motivation isn’t a thing. It isn’t a possession and isn’t static. Motivation is a process. And like any process, it can vary depending on the inputs.

Understanding all of these theories can help you identify which are operating in a certain scenario and how to “hack” them to maximize your motivational energy and get yourself moving in the right direction.
~ Brett & Kate McKay, from The Science of Drive: 5 Theories of Motivation That Can Help You Achieve Your Goals

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As I’m making plans to begin coaching, motivation has been on my mind. Not just how to motivate myself (to do all the preparatory work) but how to motivate others. The more I learn, the more vistas open before revealing vast lands of further learning.

In the dim

April 8

Why? If I’d asked them, they would probably have said: to reduce distractions and improve focus. Programming a computer is a bit like repairing a very tiny machine with precision tools while looking under a microscope. Quiet and calm help facilitate that process. Programmers may also just prefer the dark.
~ Ian Bogost, from We’re All in ‘Dark Mode’ Now

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Hey look, “quiet and calm” has the literal calm of calm technology. Bright, flashing lights are preceded by trigger warnings for a reason. I’ve been cultivating warm-toned lighting, and earth tones, in my working spaces for a long time. I cut my teeth on the Internet with VT-100 terminals, green type on black, cathode ray tubes and “screen burn-in” was a real hazard. These days a lot of my screens have ‘paper-white’ backgrounds with the black text. It’s been nice to watch the world catch up over the last few decades.

Defiance and acceptance

April 7

Defiance and acceptance come together well in the following principle: There is always a countermove, always an escape or a way through, so there is no reason to get worked up. No one said it would be easy and, of course, the stakes are high, but the path is there for those ready to take it. This is what we’ve got to do. And we know that it’s going to be tough, maybe even scary.
~ Ryan Holiday

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Re-enchant reality

April 6

At least a quarter of the messages he receives from readers express one idea—“The world is shit,” as he put it. “That has a sort of range: from people that just see everything is corrupt from a political point of view, to people that just see no value in themselves, in human beings, or in the world.” Cave recognizes that outlook from his “nasty little guy” days—but he fears that nihilism has moved from the punk fringe to the mainstream. The misery in his inbox reflects a culture that is “anti-sacred, secular by nature, unmysterious, unnuanced,” he said. He thinks music and faith offer much-needed medicine, helping to re-enchant reality.
~ Spencer Kornhaber, from How Grief Changed Nick Cave

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For there is much about which to be enchanted. Certainly a lot of technology things—planes, chemistry, computers, and our endless fascination with building things. But technology is only the obvious target of enchantment, and its allure is finally wearing off. The reality we need to again find enchanting is the outside world. The literal source of our experiences.

What would make podcasting easier and more enjoyable for you?

April 5

In the last year or so, it’s been making the time to just listen to podcasts.

When I started, I went through phases where I was consuming podcasts for particular reasons. Learning about how interviews are done. Learning about narrative structure. Learning what it takes to create highly-produced shows. (And probably more reasons that don’t occur to me now.)

Now, I make the time to listen just for the enjoyment. There are certainly many ways I can improve my podcasting, but I no longer need to be vigorously honing my craft. It can simply evolve at a leisurely pace, freeing me to simply enjoy the audio medium. That seems to feed back into my enjoyment of creating audio.

Two types of human systems

April 4

When looking for similar feedback loops in human interactions, Bateson saw that they didn’t always exist, or operate in the way they should. As a result, he recognized that there were two kinds of systems: ones that relied on feedback to create stability, and others that tended to escalate and create runaway trends.
~ Ted Gioia, from Why Gregory Bateson Matters

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I will admit this is the first I’ve ever heard of Bateson, and based on Gioia’s article, I seriously considered buying his Steps to an Ecology of Mind. I definitely recommend reading Gioia’s article.

Start walking

April 3

The theory about big decisions is that they require a tremendous amount of thought, and that investing in all these thought results in better decisions. There are many classes of decisions where there is a right move. Deliberate planning around complex issues involving different people with varied goals is essential to making a correct decision.
~ Michael Lopp, from How to Write a Book – Rands in Repose

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I say “start walking” not only because that’s the only way to get where you need to be. It’s also the easiest way to begin. Far too often I overthink things when simply taking action would get me what I truly want to know: Will it work?

Mirage

April 2

They had this idea, just one shot in which three very, very unlikely people were seen as NASCAR drivers. And I think they approached Julian Schnabel, Lou Reed, and me. (Laughs) And we were all supposed to be wearing the uniforms and the helmet, walking in slow motion with the heat haze. That would have been fantastic, but all of us couldn’t do it.
~ Salman Rushdie, from Salman Rushdie – The Talks

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I was a junior in high school when Rushdie’s, Satanic Verses was published in 1988. The book was widely mentioned; It wasn’t really discussed, but rather it was just that everyone knew about its existence, and everyone had an opinion about it. Thinking back, I’m sure my opinion was simply a *hunh* and “that’s interesting.” To this day, I’ve not read the book, not for any particular reason but simply because there are way to many books I have reasons to read. The whole thing (back in the 80s) now feels like some sort of mirage: Real, vivid, and important, but in the end it wasn’t a real thing. The mirage was about a real thing, but it wasn’t real.