Listening to the Brian Lehrer show this morning on NYC, and hearing the discussion about how young people have become the experts in this new Web 2.0 world, I wrote a comment to the author, Jeff Jarvis (What Would Google Do?) being interviewed (http://www.buzzmachine.com/2009/02/06/on-brian-lehrer-this-morning/#comments)
basically saying that young people are always ahead in a time of change.
But then how do we make sense of the woman who called in, retired or out of work at the age of 55, who started on the Google 'give it away free' model and is now doing well.
Or the students in my WriteSpeak classes (www.writeyourownsuccessstory.com)most of them between the ages of 40 and 65, many of whom have become experts on Web 2.0 itself, and are, for instance, in the top 50 on Twitter, etc.
Maybe the answer is that people who must learn (like the woman who called in to the show) and people who love to learn (like the people who signed up for my classes) have pounced on the new toys with the fascination of children. Maybe the internet starts the same dendritic fireworks as learning a new language -- at any age -- as Betty Freidan's sources said in her great book, The Fountain of Age.
I'd love to know what you think.
Friday, February 6, 2009
Monday, January 26, 2009
A Little of Everything: Daybook
Someone else is having fun with the Scanner's Daybook (aka the Da Vinci Notebook).
A Little of Everything: Daybook
A Little of Everything: Daybook
Tuesday, December 30, 2008
Feeling shlumpy? Want to do a memoir? (Oh no!)
Someone from last night's Idea Party Teleconference wrote us today (By 'us' I mean all the people from the conference call who continued the discussion on my bulletin board), and she was talking about all the things she'd like to get done if she wasn't feeling all end-of-another-year, how'd-I-get-so-broke-and-so-old? shlumpy.
One thing she mentioned was a book she'd like to gather together and self publish (you know, publish the really cheap, fun Print-On-Demand way).
"I have another book I've thought about publishing that seems to be a hodge-podge of semi-autobiography and thoughts."
I sensed she was having some hesitation about that work. A lot of us have a similar hodge-podge we've written through the years and we go back and forth between wanting to save it and cringing as we imagine the review it might get (forgetting that 99.999% of written things never get reviewed at all). "This 'Thing' is self-indulgent, boring,pointless, self-absorbed. How did this get published? Even P.O.D. should have rejected it. What made this idiot think anyone wanted to know any of this stupid stuff?" You know, that kind of review.
Actually, it's not hard to find people who would say that and worse. They're often in the publishing business or were English majors some years ago. They usually know their stuff. But stuff changes, and they don't always keep up.
In fact, whatever you write -- if you can stop yourself from trying to 'clean it up,'and make it all proper and organized which will make it phony, and phony really is useless -- will be fascinating to grandkids and historians. I think everyone should find a way to save their writings for posterity. How much do you wish your great-great grandmother had written one of those...things? Who cares if publishers and literary people don't like it?
But what is it? It's hard to get to work on something when you don't know how to structure it into some shape.
But the hodge podge she describes has no name I know of (is it a novel, is it a memoir, an essay, a journal? Why are those grocery lists in there?). However, it's something all the same, and a common something. People keep writing these things and they often continue to write year after year, decade after decade.
There must be a reason for this, this activity must come out of something innate and purposeful, like gossip, for instance (which I'm sure you all know has been the subject of more than one PhD thesis) (I'm not joking.)
A number of years ago I picked an amazing anthology about the writing of autobiography at one of the bookstores near Columbia Univ. In it was a brilliant piece by a man, at that time quite old, named Georges Gusdorf. One day I saw a conference on autobiography studies advertised in The Saturday Review, to be held in Baton Rouge -- and this man was supposed to be there. (He did show up, very briefly, and had a beautiful face and a sweet smile.)
It was summertime, my kids were in California with their father, so on an impulse I paid for a place and bought a plane ticket to Baton Rouge. It only cost a few hundred dollars and I figured my money was as good as anyone else's. I got off the plane, took a taxi to the college, put my suitcases in one of the dorm rooms, and went down to listen to the academics speak. At the coffee counter outside the auditorium where it was all to happen, I met the man who had edited the book, (I guess I should reveal its title: "Autobiography: Essays Theoretical and Critical") by the name of James Olney. I told him I thought the book was terrific, and, knowing what he was doing, he responded to my enthusiasm by asking me if I'd be willing to start a newsletter that would go to all the members of the audience as a way of connecting these people from different departments who happened to specialize or be interested in autobiography. He hoped the newsletter would encourage them to share bibliographies they'd gathered and that this would be the beginning of a separate discipline of autobiography studies that would build into a department of its own.
I said, Sure.
He knew his people. At the end of one of the conference sessions he went up on the stage and asked for a volunteer from the audience to start this very same newsletter. He waited. There were over 100 people in the audience but not one of them raised a hand. He waited a little longer. Asked again. Waited. And when he was sure no one else would volunteer -- or at least that he had publicly demonstrated that he'd given it a try, since I think he pretty much knew in advance that no one would volunteer -- he pointed at me and announced that I'd be doing it, said my name, and asked me to stand up which I did. Everyone's jaw dropped, all their eyes were on me in some kind of shock I couldn't figure out. They seemed to be trying to figure out who I was, if anybody, and I wondered what I'd gotten myself into. Fortunately, a kindly young man took me under his wing and explained what such a journal could mean to this audience, but that's another story.
As it turned out, the newsletter was great and was soon on its way to becoming something bigger. I ran it for two years, as I recall, and enjoyed it more than running my business. I was getting bibliographies in the mail like gangbusters and using my special (pain in the neck) typesetting machine, printing out a few hundred copies and licking stamps to mail them all over the country. Then these same people started submitting papers and when I tried to read them I quickly realized I was in way over my head. So I invited people to be guest editors and lined up issues dedicated to Medical Autobiography, Romantic Autobiography, Early American Autobiography -- I had enough guest editors in place to handle content for at least two years. This little newsletter turned into what what I believe was the first academic journal for autobiography studies. It's called 'A/B' and it's been run by real academics out of a university instead of my back room for a long time now.
I tell you all this to explain that back then the people who attended that conference and who wanted to publish papers and share bibliographies were still struggling to create a place in the academic world for a separate study of autobiography. Most established department heads and professors were disdainful of this enterprise feeling that autobiographies were merely a small part of any kind of literature, and anyway, they were probably history and not really literature at all. It's a thrilling discussion for people who are thrilled by that sort of thing. Modern Language Association. Calls for papers. Heady stuff.
Thing is, you're a part of it. You're actually writing in a form as clear and distinct as that one, with the same lack of self-consciousness, the same informality and hopefully, the same honesty. It's just that nobody recognizes it yet. (As far as I know, anyway.)
But when you look at your own hodge podge stuff, it doesn't seem to rise to any such standard and, forget about being accepted by scholars, it never seems right to publish these scraps on a mimeograph machine, much less in a bound book, even using P.O.D. I mean, what the hell is it? Who will care?
Still, when you peek into it you can't help noticing that some of the stuff you wrote is pretty interesting. Some is even really good. Not sure what to call it, but maybe if you leave it in a footlocker somewhere, to be found after you're dead, just maybe the person who finds it would figure out the form. There's some kind of tradition for that sort of thing, isn't there?
All these things you might think as you look at your hodge podge of writings. I know. I did.
And then the perfect form showed up.
This form suits the material as well as it suits the nature of the people who write this kind of stuff. It is called a 'blog.' You must have a blog. A truly easy, no brainer kind of blog, that you can put up in less than a minute. For the technically challenged to avoid frustration (essential!! because such folk are so easily discouraged anyway!) I recommend Blogger.com. They don't pay me, I don't even know who 'they' might be, but I do know that the easiest, free-est place around is Blogger.com. I personally don't care if my URL includes the name 'blogspot.com' It seems refreshingly self-effacing in some way.
Ah, but I think I just heard your/her objection to a blog, no matter how easy: "Well, I'm not sure I want the whole world to read this stuff. It's kind of personal."
While that's not the sort of thing an internet marketer would worry about, I do understand.
On the other hand, you sure would like some people to read it. Preferably someone who would see its amazing qualities, those that elude you, and would admire it, delight in it, and even tell you so.
Here again, a blog seems just right. If you add no keywords, and you say no popular words like 'sex' or 'success' or 'internet marketing secrets' probably no one will come. And if they do, well, you could get a pseudonym and email address from Yahoo or Google or someone and if a surfer happens to see it while killing time with StumbleUpon or something, they won't know who wrote it.
If, on the other hand, you'd like some people to read it, you can use Twitter or send a private email -- that's something we can get into later.
More importantly, is this stuff of yours worthy to be called writing?
On blogs, literary standards can be low; nobody's in charge, so no one can stop you from putting up any kind of junk. (That's enough reason to do it, as far as I'm concerned.)
But regarding the value of what you've written, as someone who put in a few years of passionate independent study about autobiography, and who majored in anthropology, both of which profess to respect 'what is' as opposed to 'what should be,' I have an opinion that I (or someone) could probably defend:
You bet it's worthy to be called writing. This messy-looking, disorganized, genre-free writing that falls unselfconsciously from our thoughts at a certain moment in time is a treasure. The form itself is a footprint in history. No alien creature, however developed, could possibly create anything in just this way. It reflects a pattern of how human brains and human feelings actually work, at least in one culture at one historical time, and how they are -- very oddly if you think about it -- expressed by writing them down on a page.
Now, much as I enjoy thinking about that sort of thing, I really don't think this argument would have satisfied the woman on my bulletin board. There was something else going on, but I've seen it accompany this discussion of value so often that I have to bring it up. This particular enterprise has a way of making you feel like you're old and irrelevant. And weary.
Here's the way she said it [sort of]"I feel broke, old, worn out uninspired, unmotivated, and don't know what will help me get out of this funk."
Her inner conflict is no doubt a big part of what wears her out. So is fear of being criticized and exposed. It's easier to feel all washed up, past your prime, shlumpy. Since our culture backs up that kind of thing, I stepped in with some very good advice, the kind I don't often give, and I'll give it to you, too, if you care to know:
Read my book. (The one that was published in 1999.)
I don't care if you don't buy it, but read it. (My publishers won't be thrilled to hear me say this but I honestly mean it.)
Get it from the library or go to a superstore, sit down on a chair or the floor, and read it right there. Read a chapter or two and go home and come back the next day and read another chapter or two.
It's called "It's Only Too Late If You Don't Start Now" and it's the only book I know of that can turn this kind of attitude around. (Well, think about it: If I'd liked the others, I wouldn't have written this one.) It has a grim test in the beginning -- one that matches her attitude. And that same quiz shows up again at the end whereupon, if you have used your head and listened to me and actually read it, you will find yourself answering every question completely differently. I think there are some reviews in the 'Rave Reviews' forum of my bulletin board, or you can read a bunch of them in amazon.com. (I don't know anyone who wrote the reviews, the good ones or the bad ones. If I were you I'd read them all. Amazon customer reviews are some of the best reading anywhere :-))
I told her something else you might want to think about: If you don't read that book you have to keep your complaints to yourself. Because the people who have read it (and that's a whole lot of people) say it actually changes their viewpoint completely.
I imagine she knows some of my stuff, but if you don't, you might not know this about my work: I'm convinced that I'm not spiritual (no matter what some of my fans say) and I dislike positive thinking and don't go for The Secret, or Personal Power Empires of the male military model or whatever's out there now. I also am totally turned off by talk of menopause, investments and incontinence. This book is different. It's a hell of a book. I mean it.
If you've read this far, you'd best read the rest -- why I told her she had to read it.
"I could hear in your voice last night that you have some very special kind of gift that might really help people. I didn't let you discuss it last night and I don't want you to discuss it here because I don't want you to settle for the gratification you'd get by talking when that would almost guarantee you won't actually do it.
Listen. There are people whose lives might change if you started to teach art with that special kind of gift (never mind what it is, dear reader, because that's not so relevant and would take too long to explain), and withholding it is simply unethical. Especially when you're being stopped by the 'self-pity' mood. Because when you feel sorry for yourself you're always stingy and selfish.
In fact, there's hardly any label with 'self' in it that's useful. Self-pity, self-confidence, self-love, all of that will have you hauling your wagon down the wrong road in the wrong direction because they're always about the wrong guy - you.
The right guy is the person who could benefit from your gifts. Truth is, you really have no right to withhold them. You didn't work for your gifts. No one works for their gifts. You're born with them. That means you owe them big time to the people who need them.
That's what I told her. And long ago, that's what I told myself, when people were far from encouraging about the life I wanted to build. I listened to myself, and went on to write five books that sell well and stay in print year after year, and more importantly, that I'm still proud of; and I've designed and run a couple of really good, original programs and I've taken care of myself and my family, all because I listened to myself saying what I just said to you.
"If I were you," I said to her :-) "I might want to think about that for awhile. It could actually get you out of that funk."
One thing she mentioned was a book she'd like to gather together and self publish (you know, publish the really cheap, fun Print-On-Demand way).
"I have another book I've thought about publishing that seems to be a hodge-podge of semi-autobiography and thoughts."
I sensed she was having some hesitation about that work. A lot of us have a similar hodge-podge we've written through the years and we go back and forth between wanting to save it and cringing as we imagine the review it might get (forgetting that 99.999% of written things never get reviewed at all). "This 'Thing' is self-indulgent, boring,pointless, self-absorbed. How did this get published? Even P.O.D. should have rejected it. What made this idiot think anyone wanted to know any of this stupid stuff?" You know, that kind of review.
Actually, it's not hard to find people who would say that and worse. They're often in the publishing business or were English majors some years ago. They usually know their stuff. But stuff changes, and they don't always keep up.
In fact, whatever you write -- if you can stop yourself from trying to 'clean it up,'and make it all proper and organized which will make it phony, and phony really is useless -- will be fascinating to grandkids and historians. I think everyone should find a way to save their writings for posterity. How much do you wish your great-great grandmother had written one of those...things? Who cares if publishers and literary people don't like it?
But what is it? It's hard to get to work on something when you don't know how to structure it into some shape.
But the hodge podge she describes has no name I know of (is it a novel, is it a memoir, an essay, a journal? Why are those grocery lists in there?). However, it's something all the same, and a common something. People keep writing these things and they often continue to write year after year, decade after decade.
There must be a reason for this, this activity must come out of something innate and purposeful, like gossip, for instance (which I'm sure you all know has been the subject of more than one PhD thesis) (I'm not joking.)
A number of years ago I picked an amazing anthology about the writing of autobiography at one of the bookstores near Columbia Univ. In it was a brilliant piece by a man, at that time quite old, named Georges Gusdorf. One day I saw a conference on autobiography studies advertised in The Saturday Review, to be held in Baton Rouge -- and this man was supposed to be there. (He did show up, very briefly, and had a beautiful face and a sweet smile.)
It was summertime, my kids were in California with their father, so on an impulse I paid for a place and bought a plane ticket to Baton Rouge. It only cost a few hundred dollars and I figured my money was as good as anyone else's. I got off the plane, took a taxi to the college, put my suitcases in one of the dorm rooms, and went down to listen to the academics speak. At the coffee counter outside the auditorium where it was all to happen, I met the man who had edited the book, (I guess I should reveal its title: "Autobiography: Essays Theoretical and Critical") by the name of James Olney. I told him I thought the book was terrific, and, knowing what he was doing, he responded to my enthusiasm by asking me if I'd be willing to start a newsletter that would go to all the members of the audience as a way of connecting these people from different departments who happened to specialize or be interested in autobiography. He hoped the newsletter would encourage them to share bibliographies they'd gathered and that this would be the beginning of a separate discipline of autobiography studies that would build into a department of its own.
I said, Sure.
He knew his people. At the end of one of the conference sessions he went up on the stage and asked for a volunteer from the audience to start this very same newsletter. He waited. There were over 100 people in the audience but not one of them raised a hand. He waited a little longer. Asked again. Waited. And when he was sure no one else would volunteer -- or at least that he had publicly demonstrated that he'd given it a try, since I think he pretty much knew in advance that no one would volunteer -- he pointed at me and announced that I'd be doing it, said my name, and asked me to stand up which I did. Everyone's jaw dropped, all their eyes were on me in some kind of shock I couldn't figure out. They seemed to be trying to figure out who I was, if anybody, and I wondered what I'd gotten myself into. Fortunately, a kindly young man took me under his wing and explained what such a journal could mean to this audience, but that's another story.
As it turned out, the newsletter was great and was soon on its way to becoming something bigger. I ran it for two years, as I recall, and enjoyed it more than running my business. I was getting bibliographies in the mail like gangbusters and using my special (pain in the neck) typesetting machine, printing out a few hundred copies and licking stamps to mail them all over the country. Then these same people started submitting papers and when I tried to read them I quickly realized I was in way over my head. So I invited people to be guest editors and lined up issues dedicated to Medical Autobiography, Romantic Autobiography, Early American Autobiography -- I had enough guest editors in place to handle content for at least two years. This little newsletter turned into what what I believe was the first academic journal for autobiography studies. It's called 'A/B' and it's been run by real academics out of a university instead of my back room for a long time now.
I tell you all this to explain that back then the people who attended that conference and who wanted to publish papers and share bibliographies were still struggling to create a place in the academic world for a separate study of autobiography. Most established department heads and professors were disdainful of this enterprise feeling that autobiographies were merely a small part of any kind of literature, and anyway, they were probably history and not really literature at all. It's a thrilling discussion for people who are thrilled by that sort of thing. Modern Language Association. Calls for papers. Heady stuff.
Thing is, you're a part of it. You're actually writing in a form as clear and distinct as that one, with the same lack of self-consciousness, the same informality and hopefully, the same honesty. It's just that nobody recognizes it yet. (As far as I know, anyway.)
But when you look at your own hodge podge stuff, it doesn't seem to rise to any such standard and, forget about being accepted by scholars, it never seems right to publish these scraps on a mimeograph machine, much less in a bound book, even using P.O.D. I mean, what the hell is it? Who will care?
Still, when you peek into it you can't help noticing that some of the stuff you wrote is pretty interesting. Some is even really good. Not sure what to call it, but maybe if you leave it in a footlocker somewhere, to be found after you're dead, just maybe the person who finds it would figure out the form. There's some kind of tradition for that sort of thing, isn't there?
All these things you might think as you look at your hodge podge of writings. I know. I did.
And then the perfect form showed up.
This form suits the material as well as it suits the nature of the people who write this kind of stuff. It is called a 'blog.' You must have a blog. A truly easy, no brainer kind of blog, that you can put up in less than a minute. For the technically challenged to avoid frustration (essential!! because such folk are so easily discouraged anyway!) I recommend Blogger.com. They don't pay me, I don't even know who 'they' might be, but I do know that the easiest, free-est place around is Blogger.com. I personally don't care if my URL includes the name 'blogspot.com' It seems refreshingly self-effacing in some way.
Ah, but I think I just heard your/her objection to a blog, no matter how easy: "Well, I'm not sure I want the whole world to read this stuff. It's kind of personal."
While that's not the sort of thing an internet marketer would worry about, I do understand.
On the other hand, you sure would like some people to read it. Preferably someone who would see its amazing qualities, those that elude you, and would admire it, delight in it, and even tell you so.
Here again, a blog seems just right. If you add no keywords, and you say no popular words like 'sex' or 'success' or 'internet marketing secrets' probably no one will come. And if they do, well, you could get a pseudonym and email address from Yahoo or Google or someone and if a surfer happens to see it while killing time with StumbleUpon or something, they won't know who wrote it.
If, on the other hand, you'd like some people to read it, you can use Twitter or send a private email -- that's something we can get into later.
More importantly, is this stuff of yours worthy to be called writing?
On blogs, literary standards can be low; nobody's in charge, so no one can stop you from putting up any kind of junk. (That's enough reason to do it, as far as I'm concerned.)
But regarding the value of what you've written, as someone who put in a few years of passionate independent study about autobiography, and who majored in anthropology, both of which profess to respect 'what is' as opposed to 'what should be,' I have an opinion that I (or someone) could probably defend:
You bet it's worthy to be called writing. This messy-looking, disorganized, genre-free writing that falls unselfconsciously from our thoughts at a certain moment in time is a treasure. The form itself is a footprint in history. No alien creature, however developed, could possibly create anything in just this way. It reflects a pattern of how human brains and human feelings actually work, at least in one culture at one historical time, and how they are -- very oddly if you think about it -- expressed by writing them down on a page.
Now, much as I enjoy thinking about that sort of thing, I really don't think this argument would have satisfied the woman on my bulletin board. There was something else going on, but I've seen it accompany this discussion of value so often that I have to bring it up. This particular enterprise has a way of making you feel like you're old and irrelevant. And weary.
Here's the way she said it [sort of]"I feel broke, old, worn out uninspired, unmotivated, and don't know what will help me get out of this funk."
Her inner conflict is no doubt a big part of what wears her out. So is fear of being criticized and exposed. It's easier to feel all washed up, past your prime, shlumpy. Since our culture backs up that kind of thing, I stepped in with some very good advice, the kind I don't often give, and I'll give it to you, too, if you care to know:
Read my book. (The one that was published in 1999.)
I don't care if you don't buy it, but read it. (My publishers won't be thrilled to hear me say this but I honestly mean it.)
Get it from the library or go to a superstore, sit down on a chair or the floor, and read it right there. Read a chapter or two and go home and come back the next day and read another chapter or two.
It's called "It's Only Too Late If You Don't Start Now" and it's the only book I know of that can turn this kind of attitude around. (Well, think about it: If I'd liked the others, I wouldn't have written this one.) It has a grim test in the beginning -- one that matches her attitude. And that same quiz shows up again at the end whereupon, if you have used your head and listened to me and actually read it, you will find yourself answering every question completely differently. I think there are some reviews in the 'Rave Reviews' forum of my bulletin board
I told her something else you might want to think about: If you don't read that book you have to keep your complaints to yourself. Because the people who have read it (and that's a whole lot of people) say it actually changes their viewpoint completely.
I imagine she knows some of my stuff, but if you don't, you might not know this about my work: I'm convinced that I'm not spiritual (no matter what some of my fans say) and I dislike positive thinking and don't go for The Secret, or Personal Power Empires of the male military model or whatever's out there now. I also am totally turned off by talk of menopause, investments and incontinence. This book is different. It's a hell of a book. I mean it.
If you've read this far, you'd best read the rest -- why I told her she had to read it.
"I could hear in your voice last night that you have some very special kind of gift that might really help people. I didn't let you discuss it last night and I don't want you to discuss it here because I don't want you to settle for the gratification you'd get by talking when that would almost guarantee you won't actually do it.
Listen. There are people whose lives might change if you started to teach art with that special kind of gift (never mind what it is, dear reader, because that's not so relevant and would take too long to explain), and withholding it is simply unethical. Especially when you're being stopped by the 'self-pity' mood. Because when you feel sorry for yourself you're always stingy and selfish.
In fact, there's hardly any label with 'self' in it that's useful. Self-pity, self-confidence, self-love, all of that will have you hauling your wagon down the wrong road in the wrong direction because they're always about the wrong guy - you.
The right guy is the person who could benefit from your gifts. Truth is, you really have no right to withhold them. You didn't work for your gifts. No one works for their gifts. You're born with them. That means you owe them big time to the people who need them.
That's what I told her. And long ago, that's what I told myself, when people were far from encouraging about the life I wanted to build. I listened to myself, and went on to write five books that sell well and stay in print year after year, and more importantly, that I'm still proud of; and I've designed and run a couple of really good, original programs and I've taken care of myself and my family, all because I listened to myself saying what I just said to you.
"If I were you," I said to her :-) "I might want to think about that for awhile. It could actually get you out of that funk."
Wednesday, December 24, 2008
Two kinds of anger -- you'll like this.
So I'm going through boxes of notes, clippings, books with my 15 minute timer on -- I **will** sort or toss these things before the new year sneaks up on me...and I find this article, torn from a New Yorker of who knows how long ago, and my day changes from one of Sorting and Tossing into one of heading for YouTube and Stepping and Stomping. (Even watching some very kindly slow-motion instructions on break-dancing.)
Before I go on, let me define the two kinds of anger: One kinds says "I'm going to choke you!" and probably covers up hurt. You have to 'get it out,' (hopefully in private) but then you'll find yourself facing the wound that caused the anger, and you'll have to get that out, too.)
The other one says "Wake up, I'm here!" That second kind, that's good anger. Identity anger. Healthy. You won't find it on a super-contented, peaceful day, but on most other days, you should go looking for it. And here's a nice way to both search and express it.
It's in the "Critic's Notebook'column:
"Fire and Ice
The dance form known as stepping was invented by fraternities at black colleges around the nineteen-twenties. The students did these drills, presumably as a show of both power and togetherness, at initiation ceremonies. Eventually, stepping moved into the quad, where the houses started holding completitions, each trying to prove it was the coolest. Then the competitions went public. (See the 2007 movie "Stomp the Yard.") [You can see the movie trailer on YouTube, easy to find].
In its classic form, stepping looks like a cross between a military parade (tightly synchronized unison work) and African dance: syncopation, clapping, body patting, footwork like there's no tomorrow!
Step up Step Afrika! [More details follow - I shouldn't just copy the whole thing but I now see it announces a performance on August 16 at Lincoln Center and I'm pretty sure it's from this year's New Yorker, if you want to see the rest of the article.]"
Me, as always, I head over to YouTube and look for awhile until I find some honeys.
Here's the first one (and one of the best) for those days you're too pissed off to exercise. It will make you feel so much better (and you'll exercise, too.)
You won't be able to do these, not like Black Ice for sure, but sit in your computer chair and do a little of the clapping and slapping for starters. The footwork looks within reach with a little practice (again, good enough to straighten you out on a bad day -- not good enough to match these fireballs) and I say that as one whose memory is almost 100% spatially challenged.
When you get through with Black Ice,you'll see other stepping options on your screen. Do a little searching and find the ones that make you happy. Then, when you want to amuse your friends, video yourself stepping and stomping while you're watching the screen and send it to your friends (if you dare).
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zEoPXBPc7O0&feature=related
Before I go on, let me define the two kinds of anger: One kinds says "I'm going to choke you!" and probably covers up hurt. You have to 'get it out,' (hopefully in private) but then you'll find yourself facing the wound that caused the anger, and you'll have to get that out, too.)
The other one says "Wake up, I'm here!" That second kind, that's good anger. Identity anger. Healthy. You won't find it on a super-contented, peaceful day, but on most other days, you should go looking for it. And here's a nice way to both search and express it.
It's in the "Critic's Notebook'column:
"Fire and Ice
The dance form known as stepping was invented by fraternities at black colleges around the nineteen-twenties. The students did these drills, presumably as a show of both power and togetherness, at initiation ceremonies. Eventually, stepping moved into the quad, where the houses started holding completitions, each trying to prove it was the coolest. Then the competitions went public. (See the 2007 movie "Stomp the Yard.") [You can see the movie trailer on YouTube, easy to find].
In its classic form, stepping looks like a cross between a military parade (tightly synchronized unison work) and African dance: syncopation, clapping, body patting, footwork like there's no tomorrow!
Step up Step Afrika! [More details follow - I shouldn't just copy the whole thing but I now see it announces a performance on August 16 at Lincoln Center and I'm pretty sure it's from this year's New Yorker, if you want to see the rest of the article.]"
Me, as always, I head over to YouTube and look for awhile until I find some honeys.
Here's the first one (and one of the best) for those days you're too pissed off to exercise. It will make you feel so much better (and you'll exercise, too.)
You won't be able to do these, not like Black Ice for sure, but sit in your computer chair and do a little of the clapping and slapping for starters. The footwork looks within reach with a little practice (again, good enough to straighten you out on a bad day -- not good enough to match these fireballs) and I say that as one whose memory is almost 100% spatially challenged.
When you get through with Black Ice,you'll see other stepping options on your screen. Do a little searching and find the ones that make you happy. Then, when you want to amuse your friends, video yourself stepping and stomping while you're watching the screen and send it to your friends (if you dare).
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zEoPXBPc7O0&feature=related
Friday, November 21, 2008
Isolation is the dreamkiller, not your lousy attitude
The other night on one of my Resistance Teleclasses, a woman named Rita presented a not-unusual problem: "I got downsized right out of my job about six months ago and thought it would be a great opportunity to start my own internet business. For a little while I was going great guns. Then I slowed down and now I don't make the phone calls I should and sometimes I don't even answer emails. Everything's too hard. I thought this would be fun!"
When I heard her say everything was too hard, I asked her if she was feeling depressed. “Yes, I guess I am,” she said, sounding a little surprised. “But that’s not me. I mean, I’ve never had a problem with depression.”
What she didn't realize is that there are two events that can cause a temporary depression, even in the most cheerful, energetic people -- and she had both of them.
The first is loss. We know that loss of a loved one can result in the heavy-heartedness and lack of interest in activities that signals depression. What is less known is that the same thing can happen when you leave a job, like Rita did. It can even happen when you move away from your home or become separated from anything that’s been a daily part of your life. Even smoking.
Over 20 years ago I went into an unexpectedly dark place for six weeks after I quit smoking. It wasn’t the first time I’d quit smoking (once for six years) so I was as surprised as Rita to find myself waking up each morning feeling totally rotten. I’m not willingly athletic under the best of circumstances, but I dragged my reluctant self out to the park and went running every morning just to get away from my morning misery. Then, after six weeks I woke up my usual non-miserable self. The unhappiness disappeared as unexpectedly as it had arrived. (I immediately stopped running, so you don't want to get all inspired by my conversion to exercise. But I never smoked again. That’s something, right?)
So, if you've got the blahs, look around your life for loss. Don't try to talk yourself out of it. Just do your best until it passes.
By contrast, the other source of the blahs and lack of enthusiasm that signals depression is much less well known: isolation. If you work alone and live alone, you're a candidate for what Rita was feeling. Too much solitude eventually causes apathy and depression. You can ask anyone who has experienced solitary confinement in prison, of course, but the situation needn't be that dire. In fact, idyllic solitude will give you just as much trouble.
I was once at a writer's retreat where the respected American writer, Tom McGuane, spoke. He told us that early in his career he got a wonderfully big advance on a contract to write three novels, Delighted, he immediately followed the dream he’d had for years: to move to a cabin in the mountains and do nothing but eat, sleep and write. Like paradise for a writer, one would assume. But it wasn’t paradise at all.
McGuane said that he learned something there that he never forgot and wanted us to know about. He found that, for the first time, he had a serious case of writer’s block. That's when he realized that the worst thing a writer can do is become isolated. I'll never forget his advice: The best place for a writer to live is over a bar on Main Street where you could see and hear people coming and going day and night and you never felt alone. “I always thought I wanted to be alone,” I remember him saying. “I wanted more time, fewer obligations and interruptions. Freedom. But I wrote just fine before I went off to that cabin, and I write just fine now that I’m back among people.”
Add all that freedom you have when you're isolated and you're heading for problems. A happy life needs some structure and accountability. By that I mean that at some predictable time of day, on a regular basis, you should be expected to show up somewhere. Someone should be waiting for you to arrive. Humans need that. Too much freedom makes life shapeless. Unending choice means that every day you have to wake up and decide what you want to do. We’re not designed for that.
At least a minimum of necessity, some ongoing obligations and predictable appointments are necessary to give us a sense of direction and keep us energetic and focused. While no one wants to be suffocated by these things, we can’t tear them entirely out of our lives without becoming disoriented, and feeling overwhelmed. They provide essential nutrients that keep social animals active and engaged with life.
To help Rita work up the enthusiasm to keep her home business going, I didn't tell her to think positively, believe in herself, love herself or 'just do it.' If she continued to be isolated, that won't work.
Here's what did work:
1. I told Rita to hire a part-time personal assistant to come in two afternoons a week. This person will do the things she never enjoyed doing, and that’s a good thing, but main reason is that no one should work week after week entirely alone.
If Rita knows someone's coming she'll get into gear and a schedule will take shape. If her assistant is coming on Mondays and Wednesdays, Rita will pick up her clothes and straighten up the place Sunday and Tuesday nights.
Then every morning she can pick up the mail and toss everything she doesn't want to deal with into the assistant's inbox. When it comes to dreaded sales calls, she can have her assistant initiate the call and hand it over when someone answers. It will make her feel very important and it looks good, too. And poof! There goes the feeling of being overwhelmed.
An event like the regular arrival of an assistant will give structure to the whole week.
2. Rita was so down in the dumps that I advised her to also get a part-time job or volunteer somewhere at least once a week, working with people. (Joining an amateur theater group can be just as good.)
The prescription worked. In a few weeks, her energy was back and she was working as she had at the beginning of working at home.
Needing people, structure and accountability is not a weakness any more than needing food and sleep. Humans aren't designed to be isolated. We weren’t hatched from an egg like snakes. We all started out in someone's arms, discovering who we were by looking into someone’s eyes.
That's why affirmations and positive thinking aren't enough: they're too isolated. And you can forget looking in the mirror and saying you love yourself. When you're feeling bad, you just don't, and you know it. Get dressed, make some appointments, and show up. You'll feel your internal engine turn on and your soul shift back into gear.
It works like a charm.
http://www.shersuccessteams.com
When I heard her say everything was too hard, I asked her if she was feeling depressed. “Yes, I guess I am,” she said, sounding a little surprised. “But that’s not me. I mean, I’ve never had a problem with depression.”
What she didn't realize is that there are two events that can cause a temporary depression, even in the most cheerful, energetic people -- and she had both of them.
The first is loss. We know that loss of a loved one can result in the heavy-heartedness and lack of interest in activities that signals depression. What is less known is that the same thing can happen when you leave a job, like Rita did. It can even happen when you move away from your home or become separated from anything that’s been a daily part of your life. Even smoking.
Over 20 years ago I went into an unexpectedly dark place for six weeks after I quit smoking. It wasn’t the first time I’d quit smoking (once for six years) so I was as surprised as Rita to find myself waking up each morning feeling totally rotten. I’m not willingly athletic under the best of circumstances, but I dragged my reluctant self out to the park and went running every morning just to get away from my morning misery. Then, after six weeks I woke up my usual non-miserable self. The unhappiness disappeared as unexpectedly as it had arrived. (I immediately stopped running, so you don't want to get all inspired by my conversion to exercise. But I never smoked again. That’s something, right?)
So, if you've got the blahs, look around your life for loss. Don't try to talk yourself out of it. Just do your best until it passes.
By contrast, the other source of the blahs and lack of enthusiasm that signals depression is much less well known: isolation. If you work alone and live alone, you're a candidate for what Rita was feeling. Too much solitude eventually causes apathy and depression. You can ask anyone who has experienced solitary confinement in prison, of course, but the situation needn't be that dire. In fact, idyllic solitude will give you just as much trouble.
I was once at a writer's retreat where the respected American writer, Tom McGuane, spoke. He told us that early in his career he got a wonderfully big advance on a contract to write three novels, Delighted, he immediately followed the dream he’d had for years: to move to a cabin in the mountains and do nothing but eat, sleep and write. Like paradise for a writer, one would assume. But it wasn’t paradise at all.
McGuane said that he learned something there that he never forgot and wanted us to know about. He found that, for the first time, he had a serious case of writer’s block. That's when he realized that the worst thing a writer can do is become isolated. I'll never forget his advice: The best place for a writer to live is over a bar on Main Street where you could see and hear people coming and going day and night and you never felt alone. “I always thought I wanted to be alone,” I remember him saying. “I wanted more time, fewer obligations and interruptions. Freedom. But I wrote just fine before I went off to that cabin, and I write just fine now that I’m back among people.”
Add all that freedom you have when you're isolated and you're heading for problems. A happy life needs some structure and accountability. By that I mean that at some predictable time of day, on a regular basis, you should be expected to show up somewhere. Someone should be waiting for you to arrive. Humans need that. Too much freedom makes life shapeless. Unending choice means that every day you have to wake up and decide what you want to do. We’re not designed for that.
At least a minimum of necessity, some ongoing obligations and predictable appointments are necessary to give us a sense of direction and keep us energetic and focused. While no one wants to be suffocated by these things, we can’t tear them entirely out of our lives without becoming disoriented, and feeling overwhelmed. They provide essential nutrients that keep social animals active and engaged with life.
To help Rita work up the enthusiasm to keep her home business going, I didn't tell her to think positively, believe in herself, love herself or 'just do it.' If she continued to be isolated, that won't work.
Here's what did work:
1. I told Rita to hire a part-time personal assistant to come in two afternoons a week. This person will do the things she never enjoyed doing, and that’s a good thing, but main reason is that no one should work week after week entirely alone.
If Rita knows someone's coming she'll get into gear and a schedule will take shape. If her assistant is coming on Mondays and Wednesdays, Rita will pick up her clothes and straighten up the place Sunday and Tuesday nights.
Then every morning she can pick up the mail and toss everything she doesn't want to deal with into the assistant's inbox. When it comes to dreaded sales calls, she can have her assistant initiate the call and hand it over when someone answers. It will make her feel very important and it looks good, too. And poof! There goes the feeling of being overwhelmed.
An event like the regular arrival of an assistant will give structure to the whole week.
2. Rita was so down in the dumps that I advised her to also get a part-time job or volunteer somewhere at least once a week, working with people. (Joining an amateur theater group can be just as good.)
The prescription worked. In a few weeks, her energy was back and she was working as she had at the beginning of working at home.
Needing people, structure and accountability is not a weakness any more than needing food and sleep. Humans aren't designed to be isolated. We weren’t hatched from an egg like snakes. We all started out in someone's arms, discovering who we were by looking into someone’s eyes.
That's why affirmations and positive thinking aren't enough: they're too isolated. And you can forget looking in the mirror and saying you love yourself. When you're feeling bad, you just don't, and you know it. Get dressed, make some appointments, and show up. You'll feel your internal engine turn on and your soul shift back into gear.
It works like a charm.
http://www.shersuccessteams.com
Sunday, November 9, 2008
Today I bought a Mac Air
I've been looking at them a long time. I love Macs, my existing laptop is 5 years old, and I travel, so that 3 lbs looks very good. But I've given up acting on impulse so I waited, watched the problems, figured I'd better get one before I go overseas again.
Also, during the election campaign, I gave all my extra money to Democratic senators, knowing that Obama would need them. I sent some to him, too, but I knew he was okay money-wise, so I focused on the senators.
And though I often found myself staring longingly at the Mac Air, I just didn't feel the enthusiasm that would prompt the impulse to reach for my credit card.
Finally, a few months ago, I decided that if Obama got elected, I would buy a Mac Air. I don't think he's going to be able to have much effect on this economy in the short run, but I wanted the message to go out, in my own little one-vote way, that confidence is up and somebody's buying. The most expensive one was reduced by a huge amount, and is almost the same price as the low-end one so I got that, hoping the big reduction doesn't point to some flaw.
But the hell with caution. It's time to act. This is not the first recession I've been through (I was born during the Big One) and when I see one coming, I stock up on sheets and towels and buy one important thing I might not be able to afford for a few years with which to entertain myself until times get easy again.
This year it's the Mac Air. And I'm feeling nice about it. Tekserv, a good outfit and good to me over the years, will send it in the morning. Wish me luck.
My own private Christmas. Hope I don't have any problems, you know, new computers and all that, but it's the same operating system as my iMac desktop so maybe everything will be okay.
Also, during the election campaign, I gave all my extra money to Democratic senators, knowing that Obama would need them. I sent some to him, too, but I knew he was okay money-wise, so I focused on the senators.
And though I often found myself staring longingly at the Mac Air, I just didn't feel the enthusiasm that would prompt the impulse to reach for my credit card.
Finally, a few months ago, I decided that if Obama got elected, I would buy a Mac Air. I don't think he's going to be able to have much effect on this economy in the short run, but I wanted the message to go out, in my own little one-vote way, that confidence is up and somebody's buying. The most expensive one was reduced by a huge amount, and is almost the same price as the low-end one so I got that, hoping the big reduction doesn't point to some flaw.
But the hell with caution. It's time to act. This is not the first recession I've been through (I was born during the Big One) and when I see one coming, I stock up on sheets and towels and buy one important thing I might not be able to afford for a few years with which to entertain myself until times get easy again.
This year it's the Mac Air. And I'm feeling nice about it. Tekserv, a good outfit and good to me over the years, will send it in the morning. Wish me luck.
My own private Christmas. Hope I don't have any problems, you know, new computers and all that, but it's the same operating system as my iMac desktop so maybe everything will be okay.
Wednesday, November 5, 2008
Feelings: Should we control, ignore or give in to them? How about none of the above?
“The young man who has not wept is a savage,
and the old man who will not laugh is a fool.”
George Santayana
Feelings play a special role in building a life you will love. They serve as a compass that can guide you toward the right goals, but they can also gather up into a heavy burden that can stop you. Behind everything you do – or avoid doing – are your feelings. If you find you’re often stopping yourself, or if you just don’t know what direction to take or even what you really want, all you have to do is listen to – and understand – your feelings.
They’re always talking to you. They know what you need. Are they always right? Not always. Sometimes they mistake the present for the past. At those times, the fear or anger or hurt you feel doesn’t belong to today. Something has triggered them. As you might already know, there are ways to send feelings about the past back to where they belong so you can see today with fresh vision.
The problem is, you can’t use reason or logic to do it.
Reason and logic are latecomers to human development. Feelings have been with us longer and remain far more powerful. Happiness and hurt, fear and anger have all been put inside us by nature to protect us and keep our species alive. They’re in operation every moment of every day, driving us to act – or to avoid action. The expectation of pleasure or safety draws us closer to food, love, shelter. The apprehension of pain or danger pushes us away from snarling animals and unfamiliar territory.
For the most part, feelings do an admirable job of keeping us away from danger and sending us toward nourishment and affection. But they become increasingly tangled when we move into more complex areas. Nature sends primitive reactions into more subtle, modern situations so, although our survival is in no real danger, we cringe at the risk of rejection when we ask for a raise; we wince at telling a parent we want a career in acting; we give up our dreams rather than feel the guilt of becoming happy when our parents weren’t.
Often, we’re completely unaware of the feelings at work in our attempts to go after a life we love and we make the mistake of applying logic to these issues. The result is confusion After all, there’s no logical reason to avoid rejection or criticism or happiness. They won’t kill you – right?
Tell that to your feelings.
No, you can’t ignore your emotions. They’re strong and primitive and must be dealt with.
(How? Watch this space. And please send comments.)
and the old man who will not laugh is a fool.”
George Santayana
Feelings play a special role in building a life you will love. They serve as a compass that can guide you toward the right goals, but they can also gather up into a heavy burden that can stop you. Behind everything you do – or avoid doing – are your feelings. If you find you’re often stopping yourself, or if you just don’t know what direction to take or even what you really want, all you have to do is listen to – and understand – your feelings.
They’re always talking to you. They know what you need. Are they always right? Not always. Sometimes they mistake the present for the past. At those times, the fear or anger or hurt you feel doesn’t belong to today. Something has triggered them. As you might already know, there are ways to send feelings about the past back to where they belong so you can see today with fresh vision.
The problem is, you can’t use reason or logic to do it.
Reason and logic are latecomers to human development. Feelings have been with us longer and remain far more powerful. Happiness and hurt, fear and anger have all been put inside us by nature to protect us and keep our species alive. They’re in operation every moment of every day, driving us to act – or to avoid action. The expectation of pleasure or safety draws us closer to food, love, shelter. The apprehension of pain or danger pushes us away from snarling animals and unfamiliar territory.
For the most part, feelings do an admirable job of keeping us away from danger and sending us toward nourishment and affection. But they become increasingly tangled when we move into more complex areas. Nature sends primitive reactions into more subtle, modern situations so, although our survival is in no real danger, we cringe at the risk of rejection when we ask for a raise; we wince at telling a parent we want a career in acting; we give up our dreams rather than feel the guilt of becoming happy when our parents weren’t.
Often, we’re completely unaware of the feelings at work in our attempts to go after a life we love and we make the mistake of applying logic to these issues. The result is confusion After all, there’s no logical reason to avoid rejection or criticism or happiness. They won’t kill you – right?
Tell that to your feelings.
No, you can’t ignore your emotions. They’re strong and primitive and must be dealt with.
(How? Watch this space. And please send comments.)
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