Author: Craig Constantine

There’s no “Fin!”

November 6, 2023

In the last 20 years I’ve made three false–starts at sketching. They parallel my personal growth. The first false–start involved me buying books and materials, and spending a lot of time setting things up to create what I thought was the perfect environment. No sketching happened. The second false–start involved my removing what I thought was a barrier; I switched to journaling in pencil (a multi-year side quest I eventually returned from loving ink more deeply) because I thought having the sketching tools before me more often would lead to sketching. The third false-start now happens once every few weeks: I find myself paused, looking at something, really seeing, and I notice an urge to sketch.

I came late to his work: I remember seeing him on TV when I was a kid, but I only really started reading him post-cancer, around 2010 or so, when he was in the middle of his great blogging explosion caused by losing his voice due to his health complications.

~ Austin Kleon from, 10 years without Roger Ebert – Austin Kleon

slip:4uauye1.

The connection is that Roger Ebert did a lot of sketching in addition to a lot of writing.

This time of year, every year, I’m thinking about seasons of life at large, and cycles in our work. I find that it’s fulfilling when I finish some large thing— when the last piece of a large project clicks into place like the final jigsaw piece. What doesn’t work is when I imagine that feeling of fulfillment too soon. I do try to imagine what done looks like before I begin small things—few-hours sized things, days sized things. But for large things, it’s often better if I think of a few possible ways it could eventually be “done” and then simply get to work. It’s best if I remember there’s no tidy “Fin!” like at the end of a movie; There’s only the doing.

É•

Bezzle

November 5, 2023

Agent K put it best, “Fifteen hundred years ago everybody knew the Earth was the center of the universe. Five hundred years ago, everybody knew the Earth was flat, and fifteen minutes ago, you knew that humans were alone on this planet. Imagine what you’ll know tomorrow.” Some things once known, cannot be unknown.

There’s a useful concept to think about here: “Bezzle,” JK Galbraith’s term for “the magic interval when a confidence trickster knows he has the money he has appropriated but the victim does not yet understand that he has lost it.”

~ Cory Doctorow from, Pluralistic: 29 Jul 2022 – Pluralistic: Daily links from Cory Doctorow

slip:4upuma1.

This interesting, tiny detour of a word is just one bit of gobsmacking available from Doctorow. He’s actually writing about managing our retreat from all the housing we currently have in flood plains. But along the way, he takes us into the World of the Inconceivable via radium suppositories. (And yes, I did proofread the previous sentence.)

É•

A flourishing life

November 3, 2023

Eudaimonia has come up before here on the ‘ol blog.

Simply put, I dislike having to use words from other languages. As soon as I queue up such a word for speaking, I imagine some leathery cowboy bitching about highfalutin words. (Which I, also immediately, find to be sublime hypocrisy on the part of my imagined critic.)

For the ancient Greeks, eudaimonia was considered the highest human good. While the word doesn’t easily translate into English, it roughly corresponds to a happy, flourishing life — to a life well-lived.

Eudaimonia wasn’t a destination — a nirvana that, once reached, initiated a state of bliss. Happiness wasn’t something you felt, but that you did; it was a dynamic, ongoing activity.

What that activity centered on was the pursuit of arete, or virtue.

~ Brett & Kate McKay from, Aristotle’s 11 Excellences for Living a Flourishing Life | The Art of Manliness

slip:4uaoca15.

Anyway, there’s simply no way to say it succinctly in English. I’ve always wondered if the language (some word or phrase) is missing because we Westerners don’t think about eudaimonia— Or if we don’t think about eudaimonia because we don’t have the language for it. I want a single English word for all of that above because I think about it all the time.

Also, are you now wondering—more generally—if your primary language (the one you speak, read, write, and hear in your thoughts) affects the way you think or the types of thoughts you are capable of having?

É•

Punk with Amina Shareef Ali

November 3, 2023

Punk with Amina Shareef Ali

What is the relationship between identity, values, and the practice of parkour as both a personal journey and a broader social phenomenon?

Amina Shareef Ali joins Craig Constantine in a conversation ranging from punk rock to social movements, intertwined values, and the role of parkour in personal transformation.

…so these are transformative conceptual frameworks that have influenced me. But something, I think [critical …], is that they haven’t displaced each other. They’ve necessarily— …in order for it to be, really, a meaningful transformation and not just some kind of flailing, [not what] I might call [a] spiritual bypassing— It has to be integrated with what was already there.

~ Amina Shareef Ali from 26:58

This conversation between Amina Shareef Ali and Craig Constantine gets into the transformative aspects of various experiences in their lives, exploring Parkour, societal perspectives, and personal ideologies. Amina articulates her reflections on integrating multiple transformative frameworks in her life, encompassing academic, political, and personal growth. She emphasizes the importance of integrating new experiences with one’s existing worldviews, highlighting that each transformation enriches rather than displaces previous perspectives.

Throughout this dialogue, they discuss the nuanced ways people interact with spaces, drawing connections between Parkour and societal shifts, aiming to challenge normative articulations of spaces.

And many of the characters who were around were not who I would think of as my people.  There were those a bit too enthralled with shock and sensationalism at whatever cost, or those a bit too comfortable “ironically” espousing fascism.  It took me a long time to understand that in order to find my place within punk, I had to be an active participant in the conversation about what punk is, and could and should be.  Which, paradoxically, meant that I had to believe in my rightful claim to being punk in the first place.

~ Ali from, https://aminashareefali.com/2023/09/24/on-parkour-and-punk/

Takeaways

Integration of Transformative Frameworks — the significance of integrating various transformative experiences into one’s worldview without displacing each other.

Diverse Perspectives on Space and Society — the impact of societal norms and personal ideologies on the utilization and interpretation of public spaces.

Embracing New Experiences for Personal Growth — that individuals discover new transformative experiences at different stages in their lives, and the importance of being open to and integrating these experiences with one’s existing worldviews.

Resources

On Parkour and Punk — Ali’s https://aminashareefali.com/2023/09/24/on-parkour-and-punk/

Ali’s website and Instagram account — https://AminaShareefAli.com/ and @meaniemoves

Once Is Never — “Once is never. Twice is luck. Three times is parkour.” https://onceisnever.com/

(Written with help from Chat-GPT.)

É•

Insignificance

November 3, 2023

The end of the race is just a temporary marker without much significance. It’s the same with our lives. Just because there’s an end doesn’t mean existence has meaning. An end point is simply set up as a temporary marker, or perhaps as an indirect metaphor for the fleeting nature of existence. It’s very philosophical—not that at this point I’m thinking how philosophical it is. I just vaguely experience this idea, not with words, but as a physical sensation.

~ Haruki Murakami

slip:4a1321.

Our sixth sense?

November 1, 2023

There are several ways to think about what might constitute the sixth sense. Because there’s a lot of stuff that we equipped to detect— electrical fields, magnetic fields, ultra-low frequencies, ultra-high frequencies, and infra-red to name a few off the cuff. Our brains are amazing sense-making hacks, and there (as far as I know) are multiple layers of mind “running” at the same time. We are literally swamped with information through so many mediums, and our brain is continuously and completely embodied into that information. Doesn’t it actually make more sense that we have “this vague sense that…” for any sixth-sense sort of experience we describe? What’s the alternative? …to have a myriad of explicit sensations that we only very rarely encounter? I think it makes more sense for to have a “vague feeling of…” as a way to experience the other, less-experienced parts of our physical abilities.

A hidden sense of smell might account for the mysterious sixth sense and a universe of subtle knowledge about the world.

~ Elizabeth Preston from, How our sense of smell works as a mysterious sixth sense | Aeon Essays

slip:4uaeea19.

The question I have—sorry, I always have questions, never answers—is: Now that I know that my sense of smell is better than I thought it was, does that mean that my sixth sense improves? (In the same way that walking around barefoot eventually improves your ability to balance without having to actually work on that skill.)

É•

No!vember

October 30, 2023

It’s amazing what the addition of a single character can do. I’m often striving to say no more often. The month of No!vember shall be a month of practicing saying no.

I’ve been saying “no” to a lot of stuff and spending more time alone, working in the studio. When it comes to invitations, a helpful question I ask myself is, “Would I do it tomorrow?” If not, here’s how to graciously say no to anyone. (More in the “Build a Bliss Station” chapter of my book, Keep Going.)

~ Austin Kleon, from NO!vember

slip:4ufeea1.

It’s not clear (granted, I didn’t look very hard) if No!vember is Kleon’s idea. That doesn’t matter to me. His mention is where I first learned it, and so I was 19,050 days old when I learned this. That’s a bit of a shame, and I hope it’s helped you sooner.

É•

The practice

October 29, 2023

I am often stuck in the resistance right before actually writing. It usually takes me several attempts to approach the work. It feels like walking up the slippery slope of a small hill, where the initial speed and direction has to be perfect, and then with continued effort—a penguin waddling judiciously—I reach the gently rounded top of the hill (after sliding off obtusely a few times and beginning again.)

I can easily be nudged into sliding off that small hill by distractions. I’m drawn to address the distraction. Can I fix that so it doesn’t happen again? (For example, change fundamentally how my phone is configured.) But I know that distractions are not all bad and I know that I can hide in the busyness of getting things just right. (Hazards warned of by both Pressfield and Godin.)

Besides that, if you want to get anywhere interesting, there’s no substitute – not even talent – for grinding away at something year after year until you’ve put more work into it than almost anyone else alive.

~ Cierra Martin from, «https://www.gapingvoid.com/what-is-your-practice/»

slip:4ugawa3.

The word grinding feels too negative a way to spin simply doing the work. If I think, “that’s going to be grinding,” I’m setting myself up to more easily slide off that little hill. Because invariably—for the things I have to, and want to, do—the actual work is exceedingly easy. Easy like gleeful skipping. All of the hard part is in the way I think about the work before I ever begin. Even using the word “work” feels too negative. All of the hard part is in the way I think about the practice.

É•