Each day is a new day, with new challenges and new rewards.
Face the new day. Do your best. And that’s all that can be asked of you.
It’s all that can be asked of anyone.
Category: Thoughts
Life is a school room
Sometimes we take it all too seriously. Life is about learning, and about experimentation. It’s not always cut and dry. It’s not always 1+1=2.
The truth is, we’re all given the same blank slate when we come into the world. Some of us have better financial situations, some worse. Some have terrible family lives, whereas others having amazing support systems. But what we come into this world with – it’s basically that same for everyone. You have a body, a mind, and time to use the both to their full advantage.
My full advantage won’t look like someone else’s. Sometimes, paths will align. Mostly, we run separate paths.
In The Four Agreements, number four is “Always Do Your Best.” It’s qualified after by saying that some days your best will be (objectively) better than others. However, if you’re always doing your best, no matter the external circumstances, you’re living up to your end of the life-bargain.
“Under any circumstances, always do your best, no more and no less. But keep in mind that your best is never going to be the same from one moment to the next.”
My Friday roundup
mmm… Friday Roundup. It sounds a lot like the 1A Friday News Roundup. Not sure that’s going to stick.
What I’m reading: From the Dust Returned by Ray Bradbury. Plunked out Something Wicked and Halloween Tree. My deep dive into Bradbury continues with more fiction. I don’t know why I didn’t read more of his stuff when I was younger. Hard-headed, I guess. After having to read Fahrenheit 451, it was a matter of principle to not read him. A mistake. Also, found this interview from NEA’s Big Read which I enjoyed.
What I’m listening to: Miss Nelson is Missing: The Musical. My next theatre project and I’m getting a head start on the material the best I can. I never thought I’d be one for TYA (Theatre for Young Audiences), but I like it. It tends to be much lighter, and therefore you can have a lot of free-spirited fun with it. Also, kids usually are more appreciative than adult audiences. (Not always, but usually.)
What I’m spending time with: My dog. Having a light month of work means more time at home, so he gets the benefit.
Other things of interest to me this week:
- Research on the Wendigo. I was captivated by the native Alaskan people and some of the tribal myths I heard. I did a little research on Alaskan culture and progressed some into Canada and the Pacific Northwest. Where, according to the legends of the Algonquian peoples, the Wendigo lived. A few links, if you’re interested: Backstory Radio; Extra Credits Animated; How Stuff Works.
- The painting style of Bob Ross. I do recall watching the show on PBS in the late 80s, early 90s. I was young, but that voice is hard to forget. You can also find a selection of episodes on Netflix or YouTube.
- American Horror Story: 1984. More in the horror genre, and in the vein of the 80s, I watched the first episode of AHS 1984 this week. Truth be told, this is the first time I’ve been excited for a season of AHS since the first season. I haven’t even watched all the previous seasons. But resonates, as I grew up watching Friday the 13th, Nightmare on Elm Street, Sleepaway Camp, etc. And actually, my cousin was the real horror-buff in the family. He had all the toys, the movies, and the spooky knowledge. The family even lived in this two-story cabin in the woods, and I’d go visit and watch scary movies, or Star Wars or Masters of the Universe, and we had a lot of fun. Anyway, this is a nice throwback – so far.
Digital decluttering
I can remember my first computer. A two megabyte tower, DOS-based operating system. It took actual floppy disks, and I played some text-based game on it. At the time I wasn’t much of a writer, so I don’t know that the thought even occurred to me to write on it.
That computer is long since gone. Since then, I’ve used several desktop PCs, switching to MacBooks in college. I still have my original MacBook, now only usable when plugged into the wall. The next MacBook was a Pro-series, 15in. monster, and didn’t work as well as it first had when I switched it in for a 13in. last year.
Then my iCloud filled up, and I spent about two hours yesterday moving documents, videos, and miscellany to a portable hard drive.
You see, we accumulate things in our digital life too. Maybe more-so than we acquire actual things. And as they exist in 1s and 0s, we’re much less likely to do anything about them. But each additional file is one more thing that we have to worry about, say when we’re looking for something specific.
How many flash drives, CD-ROMs, and hard drives to you have to store your additional files?
Sometimes they are very important. I’ve got friends working in digital media who need a TB hard drive for each day of filming. But we have to be honest with ourselves. What do we really need?
John McPhee on writing
I tend to think of myself as a bland storyteller. Maybe I like to explain things more than is needed. Maybe I add a lot of filler to the meat of the story. Maybe it’s just the way I process information as it happens, and thus it’s how it comes out.
So when I find a writer who has a similar syntax and rhythm in their writing, it stands out to me.
I was reading Draft No. 4, a book I purchased on recommendation, and in the first essay I noticed the familiar tone of my own voice. Now, McPhee is a treasure-trove of first-hand accounts, and his written vocabulary far exceeds my own. But the way in which he describes occurrences resonates with me – because of its similarity.
“In the late nineteen-sixties, I was working in rented space on Nassau Street up a flight of stairs and over Nathan Krasel, Optometrist. Across the street was the main library of Princeton University. Across the hall was the Swedish Massage.”
One wonderful thing about reading Progression, this first essay in Draft No. 4, is that I didn’t find it bland at all. And I suppose that I can take comfort in that.
Friday…
I’m considering what to call this weekly post. I used to post a poem a month, and the reading/book list every month. When I switched to daily, I left off the poetry – more or less. I still try and post my monthly books lists. But as to Friday, and what I’ve been spending time with…
What I’m reading: Draft No. 4 by John McPhee. I purchased this sometime in the past six months. Not sure it was included on a monthly list. Trying to focus more on getting books read, posts published, decluttering, organizing, etc. I’m liking this book so far. It’s giving me a little insight into forming story, at least from McPhee’s perspective. You can learn more about McPhee and read some of his writing over at the New Yorker website. Coincidently, I was subscribed to the New Yorker around 2013-2015. I may have read some of his writing before and not even known it.
What I’m listening to: The Halloween Tree by Ray Bradbury. Something Wicked has led me down a deep dive of sorts, including checking out From the Dust Returned from the library, and watching a bit of The Ray Bradbury Theater on Prime Video. Halloween Tree, read by Bronson Pinchot, is a history of Samhain, just in time for the Halloween season.
What I’m spending time with: Halloween Horror Nights. I’ve gone nearly every year for the past 26 years. My mother took me when I was a child, and I have fond memories of it. I still enjoy the spectacle and design of Horror Nights, though I no longer feel frightened in their scary attractions. This year includes houses on Universal Monsters, House of a Thousand Corpses, Stranger Things, Jordan Peele’s Us, and Ghostbusters, as well as non-licensed houses. I know some of the actors as well from working around the area.
◊ Also on Universal’s monster franchise, I received this article from Hollywood Reporter this week, speculating how Invisible Man and Dark Army will usher in a potential new wave of horror genre goodness.
◊ This old Thrillist article on why Netflix sometimes has terrible movies in your suggestions. (I’m cleaning out my reading list – finally – and this has been in there since 2016.)
◊ YouTube video of Tao Chi Kai massage on busy street in UK. I like massage and chiropractic videos, and routinely do adjustments to myself. There’s also a link in the video notes for Tiger Balm.
◊ One more YouTube channel to check out: And You Films. Their most popular videos are Diary of a Wimpy Alien and you can start with episode 1. I’ve been friends with this group for fifteen years, and they are nearing 100K subscribers. Follow them if you’re interested in updates.
On Becoming
When we’re born, the whole world is open to us. Every new day brings new discovery. What changes?
School. Rather that look to the world, we are conditioned to look to our educators – our supervisors – for instruction. That’s where new things are to be found – in the wisdom of those leading us.
I’m quite fond of teachers, and most do the best that they can, within a broken system. But education now is set up with industrial processes in mind. All cogs must perform equal tasks. Outliers will not be tolerated.
There is an outcry against teaching to the test for this very reason.
The environment today resembles more the environment of learning in the 15th century – the period directly following the creation of the printing press. Knowledge is democratized, and the industrial complex is no longer guaranteed work.
Improving
It’s no fun working to get better at some things. Most of us aren’t inherently wired to find joy in the difficult tasks.
Maybe that’s going to the gym. Or cleaning house. Separating transactions into individual accounts.
For a select few, that is a place of extreme joy. Some people love going to the gym and pushing themselves to their very limits. Some people love organizing, cleaning, and meticulously managing a household. And some people love numbers in such a way that accounting becomes both game and reward.
Us others are left looking in with amazement. However, we can cultivate that joy. We can improve. It’s just a matter of sticking with it.
We may be limited in ways that will prevent us from being top performers. We may not be. We won’t know until we try.
But no matter what it is, we can get better by doing.
ED vs. ING
I was working a job last night, until after 11, and I started thinking about what I wanted to do when I got home. Did I want to turn on the tv, and watch some more Grimm? Did I want to continue listening to Something Wicked This Way Comes? Did I want to write, or clean, or some other variation?
And in my notebook as I stood there waiting, I wrote “ED vs. ING”. ED is passive. You are entertained. You are fed. You are pleased. You are relaxed (verb relaxed, not adjective).
ING is active. Creating. Thinking. Hell, even eating. (Oddly, I did a quick Google search and found this article in the LA Times, from 2014.)
And I believe much of our time we waste in passivity. We are entertained by the television. Rather than thinking about what we’re doing, we become the object of someone else’s sentence.
And so I decided to be creating, rather than merely be entertained.
Pulling the trigger
Nonviolently. I believe we’re all blessed with the ability to create ideas. Seth Godin, in his interview with Tim Ferris, said that the way to have good ideas is to have bad ideas. “If you put enough bad ideas into the world, sooner or later your brain will wake up, and good ideas will come.”
So, the thing to do is to put your ideas into action.
I’ve sat on ideas. I’ve seen some come to market from other people. I’ve seen some never materialize. And I’ve even put a few into the world myself – this blog for instance.
This blog isn’t anything revolutionary. It’s just my ideas, flowing out into the world. The way to get the good ideas out is to get all the ideas out. Eventually, the one that is revolutionary will make its way to its audience. And that’s when the change can happen.
Michael's Musings 