Me, Myself, and this blog

Behavior Modification

If you’ve been following me online for a while you probably know that I often use the end/beginning of the year to assess some habit or practice, and challenge myself to make an improvement. My Year Of Less was one of the more popular ones. These aren’t really New Year’s resolutions so to speak, the new year just makes it easy to remember when I started it. Or something, maybe I just say that to make myself feel better.

Over the last month a few people have asked me what my plans are for 2014, perhaps looking for some inspiration of their own. I’ve been thinking about it a lot actually, largely because I didn’t have as clear of an idea as I’ve had in the past. But I’ve had a few discussions this year about what it means to try and improve yourself. How can you make yourself a better person, why would you try, and what does that even mean? After all, who even defines what a good person is?

For me, at the end of the day, I want to feel good about the things I’ve said and done. I want to be proud of my actions, and sleep well at night knowing I did what I could. I want to be happy with how I’ve spent my time, at least as much of it as I have a say in. And if I can make little changes here and there to improve these things, then all the better. And sometimes just talking about them, getting them out in the open makes you more aware of them, and thus easier to tweak. So, this year I’m looking at a handful of minor behavior modifications.

• No white lies

I feel like this deserves a whole post of it’s own as it’s something I’ve been thinking about a lot, for a long time. The people I truly respect, whose opinions I value above all others are the ones that I know will be honest with me even when that means telling me something I don’t want to hear. I’m lucky enough to have a few friends like this and I’ve often aspired to be as direct and authentic as they are. When I need the truth, these are the people I turn to. I wouldn’t consider myself a liar by any stretch, but I’m certainly guilty of excessive simplification to get though uncomfortable situations from time to time, and I’d be lying (see what I did there) if I said I’ve never told a friend what I knew they wanted to to hear so as not to upset them. I recently read “Lying” by Sam Harris which helped me refine some of what I’d been chewing on already — namely that these tiny little white lies “to avoid awkwardness” or “to keep things simple” don’t actually accomplish that, but instead make it easier to ignore the truth and broadcast to everyone around you that you likely can’t be trusted, and might be lying at anytime. I know for certain I don’t ever want a friend to “tell me what I want to hear” so why would I do that to them? And having a kid now makes me think about this even more, I don’t want to set the example that the truth only matters sometimes. It’s important, or it isn’t. And I’m going to take the stance that it is. This requires listening better (I’ll get to that in a second) and being more thoughtful with what I say in response, but again, I think those are worthwhile efforts to make.

The flip side of this for everyone else — don’t ask me something unless you really want to know what I’m thinking.

• Listen better

A few times this year I’ve caught myself in conversations with people, just waiting for them to finish talking so I can say what I want to. I felt as if their ongoing verbage is just standing in the way of my obviously brilliant thought. Maybe I’ve done this longer than I realized, but the times when I noticed myself doing it this year I felt like shit. What kind of an asshole talks to someone and spends the whole time just waiting for them to shut up? This kind of asshole aparently, and I don’t want to be that kind of asshole. If what someone has to say isn’t interesting to me, I shouldn’t be wasting my time or theirs talking to them, and if it is interesting I should grant them the courtesy and respect of listing to what they have to say. I’d certainly want that same philosophy applied to me. So that one is obvious, going forward I’m going to actively try and be a better listener and not think about what I might have to say myself until after whoever I’m talking to has finished their thought.

• Write some fiction, every day

I’ve struggled with writing fiction for a long time —  I’ve written about that before. But I realize that what I consider my “problem” is more likely just the normal steps people need to go through that I’ve somehow convinced myself I get to skip. And perhaps I don’t actually get to do that. I think it boils down to this: As much as I want to write fiction I don’t because I’m not confident that I can do it, which stems from my personal compultion to publish everything I write, so I end up not writing fiction because I don’t think what I’d write would be publishable at this point. So I keep magically hoping I’ll just wake up one day and be good at it. Which maybe isn’t be best course of action to depend on. So this year I’m purposefully giving myself permission to write fiction and not publish it. Hell, maybe I will publish some of it, but I’m allowing myself not to, which is a big move for me. And to further spur this along and eliminate another crutch, I’m going to write something everyday. That way I can’t argue with myself that something is too big to start or too involved to work on right now. These stories can be as short as they need to be, but everyday I need to write one of them.

• Blog

And while we’re on the topic of arguing with myself, I’m making a commitment that I wont let me talk myself out of blogging. I’ve written hundreds of thousands of blog posts since I began blogging regularly back in ‘98 or so. The vast majority of those were written and posted prior to 2010. I’ve been quiet the last few years, quieter than I had previously been anyway and quieter than I’d like. This has largely been due to me convincing myself that whatever I have to write about everyone else already knows about so I’d be wasting their time by writing more about it. Or worse and more likely, no one cares in the first place. And I make a convincing argument. But on a semi-regular basis I get a comment on a post I wrote 5+ years ago, or I get an email from someone about one of those old posts. And then I have to completely reconsider my “no one gives a shit” theory, but I can usally supress that. But I don’t want to, and I want to blog again more. So I’m going to stop assuming no one cares, and stop assuming everyone’s already heard it. That doesn’t mean I’ll be blogging every day, but it does mean I want to average more than one post a month.

So that’s what I’m looking at for 2014. If I can move myself a few steps in a direction I’m happy about for all of them, that’ll be a success. It’s about habits and behavior modification, but I feel like these things are worth the effort and I’ll be happier if I can push through them. What do you think? What habits could you create that would make you a better person?

Supplemental

photo

As I get older I’ve started to think about what I’m putting into my body. Granted as a vegan for over 20 years now this isn’t an entirely new subject for me, but I’ve been thinking about it much more recently than I had previously if only because as I get older I can actually see the impact of some of those things right in front of me. Things that perhaps in my spry youth might have gone a bit more undetected. That said, my interest in what I’m putting in gets hindered by how much time I’m willing to spend researching, which isn’t much. I find topics with endless wealths of data and info available to be completely intimidating and prefer to spent time researching things that in a foreseeable timeframe I can comfortably master. Supplements are bonkers. For years anytime I would look around I would find just as many for as against arguments for anything leading me to the conclusion that placebos are really powerful. So I’d take a handful of things here and there with the understanding that it might be total bullshit, but I wasn’t very diligent and who knows what the results were.

Thanks in no small part to the Information Is Beautiful “Snake Oil” chart I’ve been able to compare and contrast those for/against arguments much better recently and for the last year or so I’ve been trying out a much more regular combo of things that I think have worked out pretty well. A few of my also getting older friends have asked what if anything I take – specifically if I know about vegan options (a lot of vitamins have geletin or other non-vegan ingredients) – so I thought I’d make a list of what I’m using both for their and my own future reference. Right now, daily, I take one each of these:

On top of that, I make smoothies all the time, and I add Organic Raw Maca Powder & Vega Sport Performance Protein to them on occasion. I haven’t quite figured out the optimal time to take the protein – again as far as I can tell just as many people say take before a workout as after a workout, and still others say just taking it in the same day as a workout is good, so who knows. The Maca power DEFINITELY works. I’ve also dabbled in trying out STS Creatine 5000 which I think I saw some real results from but it’s a serious headache to try and take 6 pills 2 times a day. I don’t know why they can’t compress that into something simpler to take. At the moment I’ve lapsed on that one.

I also given Rips a Vegan Kids Multiple every day. I remember taking Flintstones vitamins as a kid and figure it can’t hurt for a growing guy to have a regular dose of this stuff.

Anyway, hope this helps. Are you taking anything? Seen any worthwhile results?

on ass kickings

I don’t talk much about martial arts publicly for a number of reasons but it’s been a very important part of my life. Without question they have shaped who I am today, and helped me work through personal issues in the way that only blood, sweat and tears can.

Early on, scattered and unfocused I tried lots of different schools and arts until I discovered Bujinkan and poured myself into it. I spent the following the years training 2-3 times a week for hours on end, in part because I loved it and everything about it and in part because the training was incredibly convenient to where I was at the time. Later, as the convenience fell away so did my training. I felt bad, embarrassed even that I’d let that happen– which on some level only made it worse. If I didn’t go back I didn’t have to admit that I’d been gone. And more importantly, I didn’t have to face up to the fact that much of my training wasn’t, well, quite as sharp as it once had been. When you are training all the time you don’t think about if you are good or bad, because you understand it and it’s just a part of you. I knew it wasn’t a part of me anymore but I didn’t want to admit that.

Probably some similarities to going to the dentist – you can ignore things but they don’t get better on their own. Excuses and justifications are easy to come by, but you can only fool yourself for so long.

Many years ago I bailed on a trip to Japan to train at the source, with some of the best instructors in the world because I was afraid. I was afraid I didn’t have enough money saved up to take full advantage of the trip, so I cancelled it. I put objects over experience. It was a mistake, one of the larger ones I’ve ever made.  For many years after that other people I trained with made the journey and when they returned I knew much I’d messed up.

•••

I’ve been traveling to Japan regularly now since 2007, but I’ve never gone to train. It’s been in the back of my head, sometimes front and center, but I’ve decided against because I was afraid. I was afraid I’d forgotten things, that my form and balance would be off. I was afraid I wouldn’t know anyone, and wouldn’t know what to do. I was afraid I’d look, and feel like an idiot. Every trip to Japan I’ve considered going to the dojo, and decided against. And pushed it out of my head so I didn’t have to be disappointed in myself.

A few weeks ago I decided I couldn’t do that anymore and reached out to some old friends who welcomed me and encouraged me.

Last night I took a train across Tokyo as the early winds of Typhoon Wipha began to lash out and drench the city, and went to class. At the source. The storm outside was fitting.

I fumbled my way around and acted like I knew what I was doing. I’d forgotten things. My form and balance were off. I didn’t know anyone, and didn’t know what to do. I looked, and felt like an idiot.

It was everything I hoped it would be. It was awesome, and humbling, in a way only coming face to face with your fears can be. There’s something about being afraid, facing it only to find it’s just as scary as you thought it would be – worse even. But that you can still get through it. And then be able to face it again the next day, and the one following. It was everything I hoped it would be.

I got my ass kicked, physically and mentally. I knew I would– that’s why I went.

I found this on wikipedia and was fitting:
“The modern budō has no external enemy, only the internal enemy, one’s ego that must be fought.” 

I can’t wait to go back.

Knowing the destination before setting out on the voyage

Earlier today I mentioned that there’s never been something I’m so equally attracted to and horrified of in my entire life – as writing. I’ve done it and not done it all my life and I’ve written about doing it and not doing it probably more than I’ve actually done it. I have this problem that I’ve become much more aware of recently, which might actually be making it worse now that I know about it, where I’m petrified of beginning writing if I don’t know where I’m going to end up. Depending on your perspective this has never/always been a problem for me to some extent – or rather, it’s been a problem in other areas that I didn’t realize were problematic, but hasn’t really been a problem with writing.

In my most prolific writing days I had no idea where I was headed until I got there and that was my salvation. Writing was incredibly therapeutic and with just a spark I could dig into my head and spill my guts all over a page and not only feel good about what I’d written, but feel better mentally as well. Like I’d worked through something. Solved something that I didn’t understand before and that drove me to keep doing it. At some point I got the idea that I needed that spark to give me the push, and then at some other point I realized those sparks don’t really happen on command. And then I started worrying about them and how to find them and what to do without them. The spark was like a quick strobe flash in a dark room that gave me an idea of what route to take to get through it, and without that I just keep standing there not knowing which direction to move in.

I told a story last year (and many times before actually) that as a kid I never took first steps, or said first words. I sat around staring at people for ever – much longer than I should have – and then just started walking, and just started talking in full sentences. It’s a story passed on to me from my parents and I don’t even know how much truth is in it. But I guess I convinced myself it was true, and then used it as an excuse by blaming some weird way my head works. I have to know I can do it before I start. Or I have to know the destination before I can embark on the journey. Which I think is bullshit, so that’s conflicting to say the least.

The thing is I love writing. When I’m in the groove it’s easily one of my favorite things in the world. If I could do that all day I would in a heartbeat. When I’m not in that groove it’s torture and I beat myself up about it all day long, which I’m certain only makes it that much worse.

I’ve talked to a number of my “writer” friends, or just my friends who write even if they don’t consider themselves writers. I ask them if they know where they are going when they begin. If they have a roadmap. If they just dive in blind. And their answers, of course – I knew before I ever asked them, are varied. Some people have outlines, some people have ideas, some people barely have a spark. So there’s no one solution, no one answer. And again, I already know that so I don’t know why I keep asking. But I do. I feel like I’m 1 year old just watching everyone walk around too afraid to try to take a step. Does that mean that at some people in the future I’ll just *get it* and suddenly be able to write without issue? I doubt it, but that’s a good excuse to not try today.

And it’s not even a fear of failure. I don’t mind if I suck. I don’t mind if what I write is stupid. I mean I don’t want to write sucky stupid stuff, but if that’s the result then I’m already OK with that because it’s a result, which is better than what I have right now. I’m afraid of getting lost. Afraid of staring at the blank page and not having any idea what to write next. Afraid of trying to tell a story and not having a story to tell. If I don’t actually write it then I can keep telling myself that I have a story that I just haven’t written yet. If I force myself to start writing it and hit a wall, then I have to admit that I don’t have a story. Which is where that desire to know the end before I begin comes from. And again, I know it’s stupid.

I’m not even looking for advice here, just trying to kick my own ass and sort through the crap in my own head so I can better grasp what it is that is actually standing in my way. Like with this post, I knew the first sentence because I’d already written it on twitter, everything else just appeared as I typed the line before it. So that’s something.

Decisions Decisions

I feel like I used to be a lit more decisive. I don’t know if that’s true or if it’s just my head making shit up but I feel like it’s true. I feel like when I was presented with an option I would make my choice and run with it but at some point I started asking myself about the options and which was better and what might happen if I chose one over the other. I told myself that this was smart and it would help me make more educated choices and more thoughtful decisions. And that’s not entirely wrong, or bad, but the result of doing that more and more often hasn’t been making better and better decisions it’s been making some very well thought out decisions and being paralyzed in fear of making the wrong decision so not making a decision at all on far too many other things. Maybe I don’t have time to do the research I think I need to, or maybe the info that I found wasn’t definitive, or maybe I just didn’t feel like thinking about it – whatever the reason a choice left unmade was the result. And it’s been happening more and more often. It’s almost like I’m bikeshedding myself.

Anyway I sort of knew I was doing this but pretended I didn’t, and then I really knew I was doing it and thought I’d just ignore it. Turns out neither of those are really good ideas and it’s just been getting worse and worse. The anxiety. The indecision. It’s a bunch of bullshit, all of it. This morning I was at Costco with Tara because we needed to pick up a few things (protip: Costco sells a giant 26oz jar of MaraNatha Almond Butter which is amazing in smoothies for like $6, which is even way cheaper than Amazon, and the 12oz jar is $19 at my local grocery store – but anyway…) and we were walking down the office supply isle and Tara said “Oh we need printer paper” and reached over to the stack of paper packages closest to her, grabbed one and put it in the cart and kept going.

I stood there in shock. And then told her why I was in such awe.

There were no less than 8 different kinds of printer paper there. At even my quickest glance I could see they were all about the same price and about the same sheet count so there was no instant, obvious reason to choose one over the other. If I had been standing there and realized I needed paper it would have taken me 10-15 minutes of reading about each option and trying to decide which one was the wisest choice. I probably would have been googling them holding them next to each other to see how much of a difference there was between 92 bright white and 87 white. And I would have been unsure about my final pick. Did I spend extra for something I don’t need? Should I have gotten something brighter? What about recycled? Tara wrestled with none of that, she didn’t even care. She spent 3 seconds on it – if even – and then moved on.

I thought about this for the rest of the day and this afternoon realized why. I hadn’t really realized how much this indecisiveness was bothering me until I saw how little impact making a choice and running with it had on her. Because really, there’s no difference in any of those papers – they all do the job. So anything more than 5 seconds would have been a waste, but I couldn’t have realized that until I saw it in action. And so here I am, obsessing about that and promising myself that I’m going to stop wrestling with myself over shit that doesn’t matter and just make a decision and run with it, and be happy with it, and stop thinking about it so I can move on to the next thing. A decision made is better than a decision in limbo tearing away at me. I won’t even get into the months and months of disasterous mental hell I’ve been putting myself through over any number of choices that have been laid out before me. None of which deserve 1% of the time I’ve spent on them.

I’m feeling like this is a reckless decision but it’s probably not in anyway. But I’m making the choice to just start making choices. I’m committing to making a commitment and seeing where it leads rather than trying to know the whole map before I take a step. Maybe I’ll make the wrong choice sometimes, but I’ll be making choices and that’s better than where I’m at right now.

So we’ll see where this leads.

Fight yourself, you always win

textures

Everyday I tell myself to write and everyday I don’t. Everyday I tell myself to take photos and everyday I don’t.

That’s not entirely true but it feels that way, and I take more photos than I write words but I obsess about writing more than taking photos so there is that. For weeks, months I’ve been in this back and forth thinking about writing and having sparks of ideas but because I can’t see the full idea I give up before I start which I know is the 100% wrong thing to do and I think about that and then I do it anyway. I’m in this particularly awesome headspace of thinking that my work has to be brilliant (not that it should be, but that is obviously is) but at the exact same time thinking it’s complete crap. I don’t even know how to classify that particular brand of crazy but it’s a near perfect balance of massively over inflated ego and crushingly low self esteem. Which results in inaction. And either way, I’m right.

And here I am writing about that – again – rather than the things I want to be writing about. I’d guess that a batch analysis of the archives of this blog, all 15 years of it, would result in far more posts about struggling with writing than actual writing. Blogging about blogging. Writing about writing. It’s useless, and yet I keep doing it. Back in January I told myself that once and for all I was going to put all this behind me and write a book this year. I didn’t restrict myself to what, because while I’m horrified and clueless about writing fiction it’s what I really want to do. But I know how lost I get when I try, and given that I have actually completed some of the non fiction writing I set out to do I wanted to leave that door open to myself. But here we are at the end of June and I have, maybe… 35 words written? If even? I don’t want to count. And they aren’t even complete sentences. Just words.

Part of it is indecision. I realized that this year – it’s something that I fight through it other parts of my life as well but really holds up my writing. I don’t know if I’m making the right choice about what to write. This idea is good, but I like this idea too, but that other idea could be interesting – but would anyone actually want to read that kind of a story? Who cares what other people think, I’m gonna write what I want to read! Which could be this idea, or that one. Or maybe this other one could work too. Well shit, I can’t write about all these things at once, how do I even begin. And then I don’t.

Deadlines tend to work for me. When someone contacts me for a piece in a magazine or whatever and says they need X by next Friday then I nail that no problem. I think if I had an editor screaming at me to finish something I’d probably finish it. Or maybe better yet a group of friends (a writing group?) that were expecting to see something, and I was expecting to see something from them at the same time. I think that would motivate me. Or would it? I don’t even really know. But 20 minutes ago I told myself I had to finish a blog post before I left to go pick up Ripley from preschool, so there you have it.