Craig Constantine

I try to forget my ideas

June 16, 2020

Keeping track of project ideas, in my experience, is usually a waste of time. I used to fear that if I didn’t capture and review my sparks of brilliance I’d forget them and an opportunity for impact would be lost.

The reality, however, is that most people (myself included) have waymore ideas for things to work on than they have time to work. Forgetting ideas is not your problem. Having too many ideas competing for your attention to execute any one well is a more pressing concern.
~ Cal Newport from, https://www.calnewport.com/blog/2014/11/07/deep-habits-forget-your-project-ideas-until-you-cant-forget-them/

In the beginning I didn’t try to do anything with my ideas. Even though—my mom may disagree—I had mastered bathing and dressing, I was still under the false-impression that my mind was for holding ideas. It’s not good at that. Actually it’s terrible at that.

It took me a few decades to figure out— …honestly, I never did figure it out. Rather, I started reading a bunch of stuff about how to get my arse organized, and started to write things down. College helped. 43 Folders helped, a lot. Reading Getting Things Done made the final pieces click into place.

Whereupon I entered the Second Epoch of Craig. At this time I dutifully studied, and earned my title, Wizard of Process and Organization, with a specialization in Internet Dark Arts. Do not meddle in the ways of Process and Organization Wizards; we are quick to anger and you are tasty with ketchup. As you can tell, I completely lost my marbles in the process. Near the end of this Second Epoch I reach the epitome of my list-building, (and project management setups, and universe-domination plans.) I was completely drowning in over-planned, over-committed, over-stressed, over-organization.

Cue, Thus Spoke Zarathustra, and the dawning of the Third Epoch of Craig. Wherein I straight-up deleted most of my lists of ideas and plans. The really important stuff continues to live in my level-37 wizard process-management systems. I know they’re working when I forget they’re working and yet things magically appear when I need them to.

Ideas are worthless. It’s execution, (plus luck, and timing,) that makes them valuable. I’ve a few ideas that I cannot get out of my head. Those are the ones I’m working on in an attempt to make them go away. But it’s a good day any time I can manage to just forget about some idea having blissfully done nothing with it.

The process of reflection

May 17, 2020

Much of the power of the Movers Mindset podcast’s signature question, “three words to describe your practice?” comes from thinking about one’s personal understanding of the word practice. In the podcast episodes, sometimes the guest’s discussion of that understanding is a profound part of their interview. Sometimes their surgical statement of three words is its sublime culmination.

In 2019, we posed the three-words question of the project itself. This turned out to be a surprisingly fruitful exercise. We came up with three words to describe our practice, and I subsequently adopted them as the three words to describe my practice:

Discovery. Reflection. Efficacy.

If those three words describe my practice—the journey of my whole life—then what is the purpose of this web site? Why go through all this work? It’s taken me 9 years and the previous 2,499 posts to understand:

It’s a vehicle for my process of reflection.

I used to think I wrote because there was something I wanted to say. Then I thought, “I will continue to write because I have not yet said what I wanted to say”; but I know now I continue to write because I have not yet heard what I have been listening to.
~ Mary Rueflé from, Madness, Rack, and Honey

And then it gets harder

April 29, 2020

I don’t think we emphasize enough the importance of evidenced-based metrics. Deep work is important. Making lots of bets is important. But if these efforts are not grounded in the reality of your field — including the hard truths about what you really do need to potentially succeed, not just what you know how to do — they are wasted.
Cal Newport from, https://www.calnewport.com/blog/2013/02/05/you-need-to-master-the-rules-before-you-can-reinvent-them/

Deep work; yes. Making lots of bets (or, fail faster, pick yourself, iterate quickly, etc.); yes. Grounded in reality; yes. Are those all necessary? yes—actually, hell yes, amen and once more, louder, for those in the back!

But are they sufficient? If you have those three, will you be successful? Setting aside the timing and random luck parts of success, nope I think you also need tenacity.

I’m not sure if it’s learned, innate or both of those. But there’s a necessary tenacity. Ever play tug-o-war with a dog and a rope-toy? That dog has the tenacity, in Spades. (Without Googleing, can you tell me where the phrase, “in Spades” comes from?) holy shit no you dont thats my rope toy i am never gonna let go as long as you want to play this is my favorite game oh my gawd best day ever!!

But, a good dog also knows it’s a game. Tenacious? Absolutely. Drop that toy like a hot potato when something better comes up? What rope toy?

Honing your craft

April 28, 2020

We’ve created this fantasy world where everyone is just 30 days of courage boosting exercises and life hacks away from living an amazing life.

But when you study people like Martin, who really do live remarkable lives, you almost always encounter stretches of years and years dedicated to honing craft.
~ Cal Newport from, https://www.calnewport.com/blog/2012/01/29/closing-your-interests-opens-more-interesting-opportunities-the-power-of-diligence-in-creating-a-remarkable-life/

This is the eternal challenge of seeing the forest through the trees; of maintaining perspective.

I’m constantly reminded of the scenes in the Hobbit where they are trying to walk through 250 miles of a forest named, Mirkwood. “Do not leave the path,” is the only guidance they are given. After what seems like endless daily struggles, they eventually dispatch a party member to climb a singularly large tree to the uppermost branches. Unfortunately, even from that lofty perch all that could be seen was more forest forever and ever in every direction. In fact, they were in a low lying area, reasonably close to the forest edge. Crushed by the misleading perspective, their journey takes a turn for the worse.

I have so many projects where I start into the forest with the best intentions. I steel myself with, “I know this is going to turn into a slog at some point, and I’m going to remember why I went into the forest to give me the strength to carry on!” Yeah, that never works out. If the project is actually worth doing, then the forest is necessarily crushingly vast and the journey through must eventually become hopeless. Of course it’s hard; that’s what makes it worth it.

The secret? You have to love living in the forest, just for the sake of living in the forest. Then every morning is an adventure. Sure, some days are going to suck, but every morning will begin a new day of opportunity.

Tension

April 25, 2020

I’ve been thinking about ways to create more opportunity for engagement among the people who are following the work of the Movers Mindset project. We’ve reached a point where we’re creating plenty of content and sharing ideas—but currently almost entirely in the broadcast direction. We’ve a considerable collection of people who are passively consuming.

Meanwhile, every time I manage to engage with someone [in this context of Movers Mindset], it’s an energizing exchange of ideas about movement, movement’s place in society, and sometimes even philosophy in general.

The whole project is intentionally aimed at people who are becoming, or already are, reflective. Such people tend to have made the growth step beyond low-value interaction and engagement and are increasingly aware of how they engage and expend their time especially online. I suppose the key is to simply engage with them one by one, until that becomes untenable for me.

Redefining our mission

April 24, 2020

Our assignment, like that of any new boss or coach, is to overhaul the organization (i.e., ourselves), strip it down to its basics, redefine its mission, its goals, its virtues and its vices. We have to fire every part of ourselves that can’t or won’t get onboard the new mission and we have to achieve buy-in from all the other parts that we have allowed to remain with the franchise.
~ Steven Pressfield from, https://stevenpressfield.com/2014/10/why-the-raiders-suck/

This exercise always proves beneficial for me; systematically going through everything that I’m doing, my habits, my friends—everything. Take the time to assess, and in particular to consider: Knowing what I know today, if today I was offered this “opportunity” to allocate my time or resources, on this thing, would I take it? It’s a powerful way to work around our inherent tendency to fall for the sunk cost fallacy.

Here I have 500 books on my “read this” bookcase. Picking up one book, knowing all that I know today, would I read this book? Considering all that I know today, would I buy a TV, subscribe to Netflix, and arrange my living room in this fashion? …would I call it my sedentary entertainment room instead? Knowing what I know today, would I agree to have dinner or drinks with this person who I currently have labeled [in my mind] as a friend? How does each of these things move me forward?

Willful ignorance

April 18, 2020

Now when I pass the sign, I try and think of at least one thing I do myself that willfully ignores truths I’d rather not accept. Things I know I should change about myself that I choose not to.
~ Steven Pressfield from, https://stevenpressfield.com/2015/01/willful-ignorance/

On one hand, I disagree: The sign’s purpose is to save ducks; it was not created “for everyone.” In that sense, the bad grammar of the sign makes it work better. But, the ducks sign is simply an example. Pressfield’s point about willful ignorance is clear and—at least for me—on target.

A question I like to reflect on periodically in my journaling is: What habit did I curb [today or yesterday]? Also, reflecting on what parts of my behavior I dislike—which was a huge part of my initial journey rediscovering movement 10 years ago—gives me specific things to work on. I think it’s a deeply useful practice to ask oneself difficult questions and to reflect on the answers, (or lack of answers as the case may be.)

Are there any questions you ask yourself on a regular basis?

Creating value

April 17, 2020

Creating value is unrelated to busyness. When you find yourself — as I sometimes do — working long hours, day after day, reacting and e-mailing and hatching schemes, it’s useful to remember that you’re working more than some of the world’s most respected and impactful thinkers.
~ Cal Newport from, https://www.calnewport.com/blog/2012/03/09/youre-working-too-hard-to-make-an-impact/

I often write about focus because it’s something I’m trying to improve. When I’ve lost focus, it’s a challenge to call myself back to the important things. But a better plan for improvement would be to not lose focus in the first place, or at least to not lose focus as often.

Recently I’ve been keeping in mind Viktor Frankl’s thought about there being a space between stimulus and response. I find that when I’m able to remember that space, I’m able to consciously decide when, and if, I should shift my focus.

For example, I sat down to write and a myriad of other thoughts arose. Instead of trying to ignore them or make them go away—don’t think of a pink elephant—I zoom in on each idea: I consider the sense of urgency; no, actually there’s nothing urgent about the action this thought is suggesting. I consider the sense of entitlement; no, actually there’s no reason that I should be congratulated or rewarded for this thought or what it’s suggesting I attempt to do. I consider the benefit to myself or others; no, actually this thought isn’t vastly better than the other ideas and projects I’m already working. Soon enough the thought moves along like a petulant child. I think, “let’s see, where was I? I had sat down to write.”

Externally, that whole process—even if I repeat it for multiple thoughts—looks very unlike busyness. It looks much like I’m sitting still. It looks like I’m gazing out the window. It even looks a bit like I’m focused on writing. In fact, I am still focused on writing.

It’s my choice: Is this the moment when I want to change where I’ve placed my focus? If not, then terrific, I’m still focused where I had chosen.

Sound of thunder in the distance

April 14, 2020

I’ve written before about the sounds of summer thunderstorms. I’m completely trained to relax and drift away to these sounds.

It’s said there are three things you can stare at endlessly: running water, fire, and other people working. I believe the first two trigger something deep within our brains; I believe there’s something about the small, random movements of water and fire which hypnotize the predator part of our brains… something about those movements stimulates our visual cortex.

But sound! The auditory part of our brain is older still, and the sound of running water is—at least for me, how about you?—deeply alluring. I’ll sit under cover on my patio and freeze my ass off just to hear the rain falling and the sound of water in the gutters.

Anywho. What brings up this train of thought? …on a gloriously sunny and blue-skied day?

…”sounds of rain and thunder,” is a thing you can listen to on Pandora.

Blog by a Stoic

April 11, 2020

Stoicism has long surged in times of difficulty—the decline and fall of Rome, the American Revolution, the French Revolution, the Civil War, depressions, and periods of strife because it is a philosophy designed for difficult times. It says, in effect, you don’t control these alarming events going on in the world, but you do control how you respond. And in fact is a framework for responding with courage and virtue, and with the good emotions that accompany and sustain them: joy, caution and well-wishing. None of these inspiring figures were guilty of emotionless acquiescence.
~ Ryan Holiday from, https://dailystoic.com/secret-singular-philosophy-todays-politics-desperately-missing/

I’m certainly not going to transform my blog to be entirely about Stoicism. Not because others have already done so, (others have, and have done it better than I could,) but rather, simply because this blog doesn’t have a single specific topic. It’s one long stream of consciousness where I’m leaving a breadcrumb trail of my thoughts. That being said:

Stoicism is turning out to be a powerful toolset; an excellent fulcrum for leveraging change in my personal life. Over several years, I’ve become increasingly interested in it, and have read slowly, but steadily. Very recently, I started a morning practice I’ve labeled “philosophical reading.” It’s simply some time set aside in my mornings to read and reflect on philosophy.

What do I control?

April 6, 2020

Nothing has all of the ingredients for the emotional breakdown recipe quite like a pandemic-induced global shutdown. Lack of face-to-face socializing and general social isolation? Check. Financial uncertainty and mass unemployment? Check. Lack of regular exercise, sunlight, and access to basic necessities? Check. High uncertainty of one’s safety and security in the near future? Check. Tons of free-time to refresh news feeds five thousand times per day? Double check.
~ Mark Manson from, https://markmanson.net/coronavirus-mental-health-crisis

If ever there was a yawning opportunity to backslide on all the things I’ve changed in recent years—setting aside time for reflection, reading, boundaries with television and food, habits of movement and exercise, how I use the Internet (it no longer uses me,) writing, recording podcasts, … If ever there was a yawning opportunity to backslide, this current shift is it.

I still have people I care about. I make decisions about my health. I make choices using my mind by applying reason. I balance conflicting demands for my time and resources. Certainly, most of the day-to-day details of life writ large are different. But all the things which begin this paragraph remain unchanged for me.

WAIT. Why did I start with pointing out there’s a yawning opportunity to backslide, if I’m saying nothing has changed?

…because the rest of world has relaxed what it expects from me.

Think about that. If I veered and: stayed up late binge-watching Netflix, didn’t get up at the time I normally do, didn’t shower and shave when I have video calls, didn’t act professionally, etc., people would let it slide. Right? The world is facing a global crisis, so it’s ok to relax the standards.

Instead, I’m raising my standards for myself. Now, just when everyone else would be happy to give me more slack, I’m renewing my efforts; Do I really want to do this (whatever-it-is), or is there a better way I can spend my time right now? What relationships do I nurture, and which do I sever? What have I been reading? What have I been creating; does what I create build the world up or tear it down?

Start before you are ready

April 5, 2020

It’s Einstein’s principle of relativity: all points in the universe are created equal. “There’s no need,” Patricia teaches, “to find the right starting place.”
~ Steven Pressfield from, https://stevenpressfield.com/2014/06/principles-of-improv/

After considerable consideration, I remain unsure what to think of, “start before you are ready.” I agree with it, in the sense of one’s needing to avoid the opposite behavior: Never actually starting because one is busy ~~preparing~~ procrastinating. If Pressfield’s admonishment to, “start before you are ready,” gets you around procrastination, terrific!

However, I have a different problem: Taking on too much. At this point in my insanity, I’m desperately trying to insert an emphatic “wait, no, don’t!” in front of any urge to start any project. But my thinking becomes circular. What if all the things I’m doing—which I’m trying to avoid starting… What if all the things I’m doing are actually just me procrastinating. What if there’s some other thing that I do need to “start before I am ready,” but I just don’t see what that is yet?

Are you starting? Are you procrastinating? …how do you tell the difference?

Creating space in the morning for reflection

April 2, 2020

“The pleasure in thinking and doing things well is…deep-wired.” I think this is absolutely true. Thoreau retreated to Walden Pond, in part, to do nothing — to just observe and live deliberately — but he also wrote a first draft of a book, A Week on the Concord and Merrimack Rivers, while in his cabin. He then left the pond to move in with Emerson, where he wrote another book, this one about his experience at the pond, then another soon after, Civil Disobedience. Thoreau found peace observing nature; but his real pleasure was in producing enduring work.
~ Cal Newport from, https://www.calnewport.com/blog/2020/04/01/on-productivity-and-the-deep-life/

I’ve long ago lost any real sense of which life changes have had the most benefit. But if I were to pick one, it would be making time to reflect. I’m often making adjustments here and there to my life, and those changes are always based on a period of reflection. What have I been doing that has been making me feel well? What have I been doing that has been making me feel unwell? …and so on.

For a while—three years to be specific—I’ve been trying to begin each day with some basic movement/stretching and then some sort of physical activity. I’m talking about first thing each morning. Get out of bed, deal with necessities (eg, coffee :) and then begin with movement and activity. 3 and 2 years ago, that activity was running. For the past year, the physical activity has been a sort-of-like-Olympic-weight-lifting program called Happy Body.

This is not working for me. Sure, when I manage to start with activity then I’m awake and moving and it’s good for my health and I get lots of what I want done each day. But it’s a struggle every. damn. day. blech! What I really want, first thing in the morning, is to NOT be physically active, but rather to be mentally active.

Starting today, I’m overhauling my first-thing-each-day routine to be:

Reflect on the day’s self-assessment reminder
Reflect on the day’s entry from Holiday’s, The Daily Stoic
Read my previous journal entries and write in my current journal
Spend some time in philosophical reading

I encourage you to build a reflection habit. It can be first-thing each morning or whenever works for you. (Many people allocate time for reflection as the last thing each day before going to sleep.) You should intentionally choose what to do as your reflection practice. I’ll go so far as to suggest you perform a few weeks experimentation with each idea you come up with, until you find a reflection practice that works for you. The more you reflect the more you’ll want to iterate and improve creating a virtuous feedback loop.

That’s the plan anyway. It’s certainly the best plan I’ve come up with for me, so far.

On podcasting

March 31, 2020

The short version of this story is simply: I’m simply curious. I try things. I make mistakes. I ask questions.

My podcasting journey began with the Movers Mindset project, which grew from conversations I started having as part of my personal journey rediscovering movement. Started in 2015, at first it was just a web site that shared others’ writing. But as I travelled, I kept finding myself in cool conversations until one day someone said, “you should have recorded that. I’d listen to that podcast.” Excited, but with no clue how much work it would be, I kicked off the Movers Mindset podcast at the start of 2017. For the first dozen episodes I did far too much of the work myself, until I wised up and started finding a few incredible people to share my new passion.

By this point I was devouring anything I could about interviewing. I smashed through thousands of podcast episodes in the process of wondering, “how does everyone else do it?” Podcasts, books, online courses… Everywhere I turned I found something new to work on in my own journey.

In the fall of 2018 I had about 30 interviews published on the podcast. I was getting comfortable travelling by plane, train and automobile, being invited into people’s lives to capture the Movers Mindset interviews. I was invited to the North American Art of Retreat, a Parkour leadership retreat, in the Cascade mountains outside of Seattle. There I did a series of interviews with the event’s presenters and organizers, and handed those recordings off for Art of Retreat to create their own podcast.

When 2019 rolled around, on a whim, I jumped into an Akimbo course called The Podcast Fellowship. I wanted to search for unknown-unknowns, to rethink everything I had done so far, and much about the Movers Mindset podcast changed in this period. To my surprise, I was invited back to be part of a small group of alumni who assist the coaches for the 4th, (and then the 5th, and 6th) running of the course. It’s mind-bogglingly inspiring and energizing to hang out daily with hundreds of people who share your passion. I even tried to summarize the fun of it in The Journey.

Meanwhile, the Movers Mindset episode numbers kept climbing and I’ve been branching out to interview more challenging guests; challenging for me as I’m forced to converse and discuss topics I know less and less about, but which none the less intrigue me endlessly. In the fall of 2019, this time with help from some of the Movers Mindset team, I was invited back to Art of Retreat. There, we did a second series of interviews for Art of Retreat’s podcast.

If you want to see a more up-to-date listing of what I’ve done in the podcasting space, see my Podchaser creator page.

Focus

March 20, 2020

I’ve touched on the importance of focus frequently. Today I just wanted to remind myself of two ways that I often lose focus.

First, shiny-distraction syndrome gives me the urge to try all the things, do all the things, build all the things, fix all the things, improve all the things… This does not end well for me. I’ve been getting much better at sitting with, (as Leo Babauta would say,) the urge to chase the shiny thing. Like a dog being trained to resist an urge; OH A SQUIRREL! …no, sit! …wait …wait (the squirrel moves out of sight) …good boy!

Unfortunately the second way I lose focus is pernicious; I’ll call it shifting-sands syndrome. This happens when I decide to take something on—maybe it’s something small, maybe it’s big, whatever, it’s something I feel moves me towards some goal. “Ok, yes, this is a good thing to work on. This is definitely not shiny-distraction syndrome. I’m in. Let’s do it.”

And then someone else moves the goal posts.

I fall for this all the time. It’s like the sunk-cost fallacy. “I was going to do 42 units of life-energy-work, what’s 2 more?” Hey Craig! I’ll tell you what 2 more is: 2 more is 44 units. Stop and think! Don’t make the decision based on, “it’s only 2 more.” Rather, I need to start over: What’s the task/thing/etc., how much work is it (now 44 units, not just 42), do I want to do it, is it worth it, and so on.

Scratch the itch

March 19, 2020

While it’s true (and wise) that…

Not to be driven this way and that, but always to behave with justice and see things as they are.
~ Marcus Aurelius

slip:4a1068.

…counsels a steady hand on the rudder of one’s life, it is equally important to know when to tack.

There’s a terrific bit of “life wisdom” you learn from sailing which goes as follows. But first you need the four rules for sailing:

Keep the water out of the boat, lest you transition from sailing to swimming.
The wind will try to set you in the direction it blows, just as the wind will push a tumbleweed.
The water, (if there’s any current,) will try to make you drift in the direction it flows, just as the current will float you downstream when rafting on a river.
One cannot sail directly towards the wind. There’s an arc of directions to either side of the direction from which the wind blows that are impossible.

The “trivial” exercise of operating the sailboat in various conditions is left for the reader.

Your challenge then is to get to your destination while following the rules. Interesting journeys will involve being near land, (beware Rule 1 because it’s the wet land that always gets you!) or cover long distances, (beware Rule 2 and 3 because their affects are cumulative and vary with time.) Interesting journeys will involve a specific destination which, thanks to unwritten Rule 5 are always to windward, so you cannot go directly there as per Rule 4.

…but you can go sort of towards it if you aim to the left of the wind’s source. And then you can tack, by turning quickly through the wind and going sort of towards your destination aiming to the right of the wind’s source. Doing so is called “tacking to windward.” Modern sailboats are pretty good at doing this. Ancient sailboats had to switch to rowing, or wait for different wind.

Finally, I can get to this part:

You’re going to be paying a lot of attention, sitting relatively still and watching the sailboat sail. You will also be paying attention to your destination which is almost certainly not directly in front of you. Untrained observers, (if they know your destination,) will be thinking, “why are you going in that direction?” Tacking isn’t very hard, but it slows you down and takes time and effort—you’d rather be sailing along, than tacking many times. (Perhaps at this point you’re thinking about geometry and those related-speeds word-problems you saw as a kid?)

While it’s true (and wise) that, “Not to be driven this way and that, but always to behave with justice and see things as they are.” counsels a steady hand on the rudder of one’s life, it is equally important to know when to tack.

Diet. Diet? Diet!?

March 13, 2020

Overall I am ending this research more confused than when I started it. I think the most likely dietary change I make is to try to avoid foods with soybean, corn, or safflower oil, since this is probably a good stand-in for “foods processed enough that they count as processed foods and you should avoid them”. I don’t think the evidence is good for avoiding fish oil and olive oil, and there’s enough evidence from elsewhere that these foods are healthy that I’m going to keep trying to eat them. I don’t think the evidence is good for saturated fats being especially good, and there seems to be at least equally strong evidence that they’re bad, so although I’m not going to work too hard to avoid them I’m definitely not going to optimize my diet for getting as many of them as possible.

~ Scott Alexander from, https://slatestarcodex.com/2020/03/10/for-then-against-high-saturated-fat-diets/

That’s the very last paragraph from a not-overly long piece from Alexander. Overall, yes I agree, I am more confused than when I started trying to sort out my eating.

Which is rather depressing; ~100 years of nutritional science and all we have are a lot of questions. I’ve put a lot of time into trying to figure out what works best for me—for maintaining a healthy weight—and I still am unable to control my weight to a degree that I’d like.

I can say for certain, (n=1, my anecdote, ymmv, etc.,) that there are interlocking causes which I am unable to control. I’ve spent 15 years working very hard, and while I have some ideas of what works, I do not have control.

If you want to read a terrific book that will expand your diet knowledge in some new directions, check out S. Guyenet’s, The Hungry Brain.

Motivation versus validation

March 11, 2020

A great number of bits are dedicated to discussing motivation. In particular, it’s well-covered that my motivation should spring from within. I should do whatever-it-is because I value the work or the self-transformation. Far too many people are externally motivated and so those bits are well-deployed.

But validation? I don’t hear about that so much.

Engineering, (think bridges and airplanes,) we all agree should be validated. Implicitly we know that means externally validated. We know that engineering done in a filter-bubble is not truly validated, and that ends badly.

But eveyone seems to toss the baby with the bath water: “I’m not doing engineering or hard science, therefore, as a principle, I don’t need external validation.“

But, that’s right only as a corrective term in our lives. “Holy shit our society is too externally motivated, so let’s stop with the external motivation.” Yes, please.

But once you figure out how to do your work from a place of kindness and internal motivation, you next need to put it out there. Put a price tag on it… Ask for feedback… Does the book sell… Do the people who follow your advice go on to do nicer or better things… In short, are you efficacious?

Yes yes yes art for arts’ sake is not what I’m talking about. Paint just for yourself and die an undiscovered master—that’s internal motivation for the win. (not sarcasm)

But if, you know, what you’re doing is supposed to be True, (however that’s defined for whatever it is you’re doing,) then you better put yourself out there and get some external validation. Yes, you’re going to need thick skin, and certainly don’t go alone, but go you must.

Slight interest with a dash of surprise

March 10, 2020

There’s a special kind of slightly-surprised magic which you can reliably determine has occurred when someone makes the sound, hunh.

My grandmother was a sought-after seamstress who handmade custom draperies. Think custom home decor and hotel lobbies. As her eyesight diminished year-by-year, she eventually asked my dad to add a small attachment to her sewing machine: a clever little mechanism that is able to pull the thread through the eye of the sewing needle. Yes, there really is such a thing. It’s a brilliant little device. It works like magic and is strikingly-obvious once you see it in action. She hands my dad a few German-made sewing-machine parts; tiny little parts… a single tiny screw, a little doomathingus, and this third whatchamacallit. There are no instructions though. So my dad—an accomplished mechanic by trade—puts on his glasses and sits down with her Pfaff sewing machine, thinking, “how hard can it be to add these two parts to this sewing machine using this one screw?” I don’t know how long he actually spent trying. That detail was always suspiciously omitted whenever he told this story.

Eventually he gives up in failure and lugs the machine to the Pfaff sewing machine dealer. The dealer is old-school—located in a 100-year-old sewing mill building, with a little front-shop and with the real workshop in the back. My dad sets the machine and parts on the counter. This story is set in the 80’s, and although it was never mentioned in the telling of the story, I’m assuming the machine came from that shop 30 years earlier. I’d also bet that my grandmother called them [on her rotary phone] to order the clever little needle-threading-thingy from there too.

So the scene is set: One wizened, male mechanic with a sewing machine and some parts. Another wizened, male mechanic jaded by a century of stoopid sewing machine problems and questions.

“Hello, how can I help you?”

“I can’t get this attachment to… well… attach.”

“It’s easy. You just use that screw to attach that thingus and that whatsit to the arm right there where the sewing needle…”

“No, sorry, it’s not actually possible.”

It’s a classic show-down. In fact, you know it well. You’ve had this show-down yourself at the auto mechanic, in the grocery store, or on the phone with your Internet tech support.

The shop owner looks at my dad like he’s an imbecile and with a flicker of an eye-roll, starts to pick up the machine and the parts to go in the back…

“…wait! No don’t take it in the back. Let me see you do it.”

At this point it’s still a battle: My dad with a problem, and the sewing machine guy not truly interested in helping. The guy grudgingly gets his glasses and starts. …and the little whatsit falls out. …the little screw won’t quite stay in. Maybe if he moves his light this way, and tries reaching in from the other side… nope. Another try. …and a fourth try.

And then, “hunh.”

“…ok, now you can take it in the back.”

The moral is that any time you have a problem, and you have someone whose help you want, there is before-the-hunh and after-the-hunh. No one will truly help you—no one will truly own your problem—before they say, “hunh.”

And yet

March 7, 2020

And yet. The indescribable reward of taking a bunch of ink on paper from the shelf at Chappell of Bond Street. Tubing it home, setting the score, pencil, coffee and ashtray on the piano and emerging a few days, weeks or months later able to perform something that some mad, genius, lunatic of a composer 300 years ago heard in his head while out of his mind with grief or love or syphilis.

~ James Rhodes from, https://stevenpressfield.com/2014/02/find-what-you-love-and-let-it-kill-you/

Know what I love most about having my own blog? Being able to pull-quote really random-ass stuff like this just because I liked it.

And yet I don’t play the piano. Never played as a kid, but did mess around with it—including having a real piano teacher—around 30, got to advanced beginner and then ran out of time to practice when I finally had a house that would actually have been the first time I had room for a real piano. Sorry, I digress.

And yet for some random-ass reason I completely feel as if I understand what this apparently bat-shit crazy concert pianist is talking about. …maybe it’s the parallel of piano keys and computer keyboard keys? …maybe it’s the parallel of pouring countless hours—I paused here and started actually trying to estimate how many hours, straight-up paniced at how large the number was getting to be and decided to just move along—into tapping away at computers creating something that was, is and always will be, “just” good enough? Seriously I am not an artist. I certainly don’t think of myself as an artist. I always felt like an engineer sorting out, and building, systems of various forms.

And yet