Intermission

I started this blog as more of an open letter to myself than anything else. Whether my offspring is able to utilize it in the future or not is still to be seen. I just needed a place to record all of the shit that was bouncing around my head, and I put myself on a schedule (one published post every Thursday) to make sure I didn't start it and then leave it alone for weeks. In the course of the 5 (now 6) posts/weeks that I've been doing this, I've learned WAY more than I thought I would. While I think this blog is far from over, I wanted to take some time this post just to recap some of what I've learned in the course of writing what I have so far. So I did - check it out:

I'm no longer sure how I feel about being funny.

My initial plan for the blog was a pretty much a productivity blog in the tone of cracked, because the whole learning how to be a better person thing appeals to me, and it had to be funny (duh). However, I'm starting to wonder not only if I'm good at writing humor, but if I even enjoy it. As stated above, the blog is essentially an open letter to myself. The reason I wanted it to be funny was because I thought no one would want to read it if it wasn't funny. Just in case you missed it, I'll say it again. The blog is essentially an open letter to myself. The reason I wanted it to be funny was because I thought no one would want to read it if it wasn't funny.

Humor has always been my primary defense mechanism. The bottom line is, I was scared, and I kind of still am. Publishing what you think is scary. Publishing what you think in the form of humor is less scary. If someone doesn't like it, then maybe they just have a different sense of humor, or maybe they have no sense of humor. It's not like they don't like ME, they just don't like my jokes. The bottom line is, it comes from a tendency to think that what I have to say isn't worth reading unless it's funny. I even marked one post that had a more serious tone with a disclaimer that it wasn't funny, so just skim or skip it. Man, fuck that. My first post said that I didn't care whether anyone read this or not. I need to stand by that instead of trying to please everyone but myself. I like humor. I might still write funny posts. I might write almost all funny posts, and I'll certainly keep using serious cat, because he's the man. But I won't try to be constantly funny on my own personal letter to myself so that other people like it.

  I like quotes a lot

This one isn't profound as the previous one, but I learned that I really like quotes (like, a lot). I think I kind of already knew that I really liked them, but when I actually started writing about how much I liked them, it kind of sunk in. When I was a teenager, I had a composition book in which I had scribbled some quotes that I liked, mostly about suicide and people's last words and such, but that was my thing. Anyway, I've been thinking about that book a lot recently. I think I should start another, less death-centric book. Quotes are obviously really important to me, and it would be really nice to have a little book with some of my favorites in it. Also, I think that writing things down with a real pen in a physical book is something that I think is really cool (he says, typing on his laptop). I'll be doing more writing of that type now as well, because my little sister just bought me a really cool year planner/journal that I'm planning on using as much as I remember to.

I like parentheses a lot too

Much of my editing time seems to be spent removing parentheses, and attempting to keep the removed parentheses from turning into run on sentences (which is another problem in and of itself - like I said, I'm not particularly good at writing). I think it comes from (in addition to my almost supernatural mid-sentence interrupting ability in real life) my snarky nature. I have little snide remarks for everything (even my own writing), and if I put them all in (like I usually want to), then my posts would be far (even) less aesthetically pleasing than they are. It's how I write because it's how I think. I'm not really sure what to do with this information now that I have it, but hopefully I'll be able to learn (at some point) how to keep from punctuation abuse (or not, whatever).

Writing about what you think teaches you what you think

I think that this goes back to how this blog will always be far more useful to me than it will be to anyone else. Sometimes I'll be halfway through typing a sentence about my opinion on something and I'll realize that I never realized that that was my opinion before. It's bizarre, but it's another reason that I'll keep writing on this thing. Plus, it means I'll never run out of stuff to write about. There's always something else to write about when you rarely know what you're going to write about when you sit down.

Edison was right

I never realized how true it is that genius is 1% inspiration and 99% perspiration, but most of what quality writing is (from my own limited experience) seems to be sitting your ass down and trying really hard to make some quality writing. There are different techniques - some people use outlines, some use free writing, etc. But no matter what the technique is, butt-in-chair time is what produces good writing.

People are really nice

People read my blog. Not a lot of people, but some. I put these posts on Facebook, and some people take time to at least click and read. Some people even like the links on Facebook, or comment on the blog. That's really nice. I'm asking people to read my online brain dump, with admittedly mediocre writing, and some people are actually doing it. A friend of mine even told me in person while I was at work that she really enjoyed one of my posts. That's pretty cool! I imagine it might be a different story if I was walking around downtown forcing papers on people and requesting their opinions, but nonetheless, what I'm taking from it is that people are pretty rad, so thanks for being rad!

Excuse me, ma'am. I wrote a thing. You can leave any comments or suggestions
behind this bush tonight, or you can call my pager, the number is on the back.

 

I'm not particularly good at writing

A long time ago, I was admiring a painting with a friend who was a damn good artist. I expressed that it would be impossible for me to make a painting that was as beautiful as the one we were looking at. He told me that anyone could make a great painting if they're willing to put in the time. Of course, I could put in a lot of time into a painting, and end up with a shitty painting that took me a really long time to do, but it's true that some artists spend months on a single painting. In order to make something great, you have to put in the time to shape it and make it great. The same that is true of painting is even more true of writing. It doesn't take a talent, or an advanced skill. Almost anyone can form a coherent sentence, and everyone has interesting thoughts in their heads. It just takes time to put them all down and organize them, and edit them, and reread them, and edit them again, and take out that one part that doesn't fit, and reread the whole thing to make sure it still has something resembling flow.

My overall satisfaction with an individual post seems to be directly proportional to how much time I spent with it after I was "done writing," which means that me happening to make a decent post every now and again is more a matter of how much work I put into it than how wonderfully talented I am. Now, when I say I'm not particularly good at writing, or that I'm not wonderfully talented, I don't mean I'm BAD at writing (though, if I am, the comments section is just below this post), just that I'm not particularly good. I think that there are definitely remarkably good people out there who can consistently churn out high quality "completed" first drafts. Those people are probably the ones who have been writing long enough to hit their "10,000 hours," or at least who have had more practice than me. So, regardless of how I feel on a day to day basis about my writing, the only way to get to where I want to be is just going to be a lot of writing, so, well, here I am.

Thanks for reading! Next week's blog post will be about whatever the hell I feel like writing about when I start typing it up. Until then, friends.

Reading Books - A Case for the Good Shit

In my last post, I briefly mentioned the importance of reading real books, as opposed to the little snippets that we all get in this remarkably overstimulating age. I wanted to expand on that, because I've seen a lot of "pro-reading" articles and posts around our world wide web that say some pretty stupid things. Some take the attitude of "I don't care what they're reading, as long as they're reading," which is well intentioned, but hilariously misguided. I think that it comes from having a culture of semi-literates, which has caused those of us who DO read books to join forces in the name of literacy (which is a Good Thing), but in doing so, we have allowed some questionable factions into our alliance. So, with the caveat that at the end of the day, I am a full, card carrying member of the pro-literacy alliance, I wanted to say a few things that I've found to be helpful for choosing reading material for myself, and some of the characteristics that I look for when recommending reading material to others.

Popcorn Nonfiction < Popcorn Novels < Good Novels < Good Nonfiction

When it comes to reading material, the first thing to do is decide why you're reading. If you're just reading to have something relaxing to do (a time sink), then damn near anything will do, and usually it's the thing that's closest to your hand. This is how People sells magazines, and I've managed to leverage this force to get literally DOZENS of views every time I put out a post. I have to say that while I've used this force, I can't really recommend wasting reading time on whatever happens to be most convenient, especially if you're reading online. You'll end up in clickbait purgatory reading "The 5 most notorious Super Bowl halftime nip-slips"

How have I only heard of ONE of those?

Popcorn nonfiction is the worst. There is literally nothing worse you can read than clickbait and celebrity gossip. Go watch TV or something. You're rotting your brain. In this category we can also put any lies masquerading as truth, like books on palm reading or Scientology.

In order to keep us from falling victim to articles and books about thetans or the 15 best haircuts for '15, we have to put up a line of defense. This is where our popcorn novels come in to play. Popcorn novels are fun! They have swords, or guns, or magic (or if you're a girl, penises and candlelight and stuff), good wins, or loses if the author is trying to be gritty - whatever. The point is, they're fun! They don't make you a better person or teach you anything, but they're not supposed to. They're just there to be a good time, like "escorts" for your brain. Keep them around and pull them out when you start getting the urge to read about Scorpio's compatibility with Aries.

Next on our list we have what I refer to as "good novels". These are your "To Kill a Mockingbird"s and your "Grapes of Wrath"s. These are the ones that you feel like you should be reading when you're reading your popcorn novel. To me, they're a little more valuable than popcorn novels, not only because they might teach you a thing or two about how to live, but also because they can be a good source of heroes. In addition, they also give you something you can talk to smart people about. After their guard is down, you can throw them in your van and beat them until they tell you what they know. I figure it's cheaper than college.

While I do certainly feel that quality fiction is worth reading from time to time, the best fictions will never rise to the level of quality work about reality. Because of this, when people ask me what my favorite books are, I go to "How to Win Friends and Influence People" and "How the Irish Saved Civilization" (some of my favorite books) long before I ever get to "Of Mice and Men" or "The first 26 pages of 1984 - I keep meaning to finish it..." (some of my favorite novels). The reason is that novels will always just be stories. Now, I love stories, stories are great, and as I said above, in the best of them we can find helpful hints on dealings with people, and how to live our lives in general. But if you're reading to learn how to live, in the best of non-fiction, the lessons are better organized, easier to apply, and more helpful in general. Also, no novel is ever going to teach you a specific skill. Sometimes, you even get meaningful stories that actually happened (which is why history is the bomb - best of both worlds).

What to read

So you've decided why you're reading, and decided what category to choose from. As far as popcorn novels go, it really doesn't matter. Something with cool cover art or something. Good novels can be found here. If you go along the right side of the page, just skip over the Scientology ones, and know that while Ayn Rand's work is pretty good, her presence on the page is more indicative of what type of person votes for what the best novel is on the internet than what the best novels are.

If you want to read the best work about real stuff, look to your heroes again, or to your future ideal self. What would THAT person read? What would he know? For me, my ideal self has great dealings with all kinds of people. He is knowledgeable in a wide variety of subjects, from Roman history to nutrition. So when I pick a topic that I want to read about, I find a few books on that topic on Amazon, and then I read the most helpful review and the most helpful critical review for each. It's pretty easy to tell which one to read after that.

As always, thanks for reading! I hope you found something helpful, or at least amusing. Catch you next week.
Remember, reading good shit is awesome. Fill your mind with excellence, not with garbage.

Timing is Everything

This is the first blog post I have written that has almost no joking around in it. It may have been something I ate, and I'm sure I'll be back to my normal, snarky self by next week. In the meantime, know that any and all serious posts on this blog will be marked by Serious Cat, so that my humor-loving readers know to skim or skip.





Almost 800 years ago in China, a man named Dogen arrived from Japan. He had made what was then a difficult and dangerous journey to study the Ch'an school of Buddhism, and to find the answer to a question that had haunted him for most of his life. He searched in the foreign land for enlightenment and the answer to his question for over two years, until he met an old master named Rujing. Dogen studied under Rujing for some time. One day in the meditation hall, among many other monks, Dogen heard his teacher say "Let body and mind fall away." Upon hearing this, Dogen achieved the enlightenment he had traveled to China to achieve. No one else in the room did. They were all in the same place, doing the same thing, hearing the same words. Why did only one of them achieve enlightenment?

As humans, we sometimes want everything to work with one model. We want there to be one answer to life. When we're young, we search frantically, in religion, in philosophy, in science. We ask our parents and they don't know what the answer is. Sometimes when we grow up, we forget about our question in the hubbub of daily life. Then, when we're old, we wrack our brains trying to figure out what we missed in all the time we were here. Sometimes we come up with an answer, and we tell our children and grandchildren, because if WE knew that when we were young, we would have been unstoppable.

But then, something remarkable happens. No one cares. No one cares that this answer took 60, 70, 80 years to come up with. No one cares that this secret can send them to amazing success. The young person we used to be, the one still searching for the answer, hears it and brushes it off, because that CAN'T be the answer. He keeps searching. The busy adult has no time to listen, let alone understand.

So what happened? The timing is off. The young person needs the answer to his question, and he's in a big question/big answer headspace. Maybe his answer for now is that there is no answer, and that frees him up to live his life. Maybe our busy grown up just needs to have someone put a hand on his shoulder and remind him to breathe. Those aren't necessarily the answers to everyone in those situations, but maybe they are for them.

I truly believe that each one of us has something that we need to hear, or something that we need to do, that will get us closer to being the person that we want to be. Maybe it's something brand new and exciting, but maybe it's something that we've heard before, but we weren't ready for. For years, I needed to hear someone tell me that consistency is more important than intensity. I was always rushing after one thing for a few months, and then dropping it and moving on to the next. No one told me directly, or so I thought, so I had to figure it out for myself. When I came up with the saying, I immediately liked it, because it not only addressed some of the issues I was having, but it also rhymed. The words just came to me one day as I was looking at some favorite quotes of mine (have I mentioned that I'm a quote fanatic?) and came upon Aristotle's "We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, then, is not an act, but a habit."

How many times had I read those words without really understanding them? I don't know, but a lot. I was really stunned that the answer was but one between-the-line reading away the whole time. But maybe that was the first time I was really ready for it. Maybe it washed over me all of the times I'd read that very quote before because I hadn't had enough trial and error yet. Which makes me wonder: if I wasn't such an avid quote collector and reader, how long would it have taken before I just happened to come upon that quote, or another that said something close? It also makes me wonder if I could have been ready for it earlier had someone brought it to my attention that that was something that I needed. From this experience, I realized two things - one that I was already doing, and one that I needed to do.

Thing one - Being a quote fanatic is a Good Thing. It keeps you on the lookout for tidbits that can help you be a better, cooler, more successful version of yourself when you're ready for them. It makes you remind yourself of the things that are important to you. It helps you catch yourself when you go off track, or even when you overcorrect a little. However, I give you two caveats. First, one man's trash is another man's treasure (and vice versa). Only save quotes that are helpful and profound to you. Just because someone else thinks that it's worth saving to wikiquote doesn't necessarily mean it makes your quote journal. And second, quote study will never take the place of reading real books, and of course, real success blogs. Also, in the spirit of both caveats, look for quotes in places other than lists of quotes. If you find something profound in a magazine article, write it down on your list of quotes.

Thing two - I need a mentor. I have heroes of course, and two or three people who are partial mentors, but I think it would help me a lot if I had someone who could help me with information timing. There's so much knowledge in the world, and with the internet, almost all of it is available within a few seconds. I really wish I had someone who was well versed in the skill of the century, and could help me separate the needles from the chaff, as the saying goes. I may continue the mentor discussion, and hopefully progress, in a future blog post. In the meantime, I would encourage you to seek out the same.

The most important aspect of both things is timing. Quote study is like looking at a list of time bombs. What may help you one day, you might grow out of. And, of course, what you aren't ready for one day, may be exactly what you need the next. A good mentor is only valuable because of timing. We all have vast information at our fingertips, but if someone can tell you what you need to do next, to get you to where you want to be, then that's something hugely valuable. Timing is everything. Timing is why Dogen was the only person to realize something amazing when his teacher said to let body and mind fall away in a room full of meditating monks. Timing is why I didn't get that consistency is more important than intensity until I was ready for it. What are YOU waiting for? Find it, and move on to the next big thing.

Thanks for sticking with me through this very unfunny post. Until next time, I wish you the best in all.



Note: Dogen later returned to Japan and founded the Soto school of Zen (Zen is the Japanese pronunciation of Ch'an). The Soto school is the largest branch of Zen in Japan, and if you've ever heard of or studied Zen, it is due in no small part to our boy Dogen.