It’s funny how necessity gets your attention. And how interest can grab your attention, too. One is an irresistible gravitational force of fear and the other a subtle magnetism. Both achieve the same result: an insistent focusing of attention. One locked in, one that releases you any time you want.
Yesterday I had the latter while clearing emails. Weird, right? To clear emails yet be in the zone. And out. And back in.
Well, to be precise, the best predictor of future behavior is current behavior.
Focus on current behavior. What are you doing well right now?
Watch your words. No “I’m gonna” or “I should” or similar aspirational vapidities.
Focusing your attention on doing and speaking about specific examples of current behavior: the best way to defuse aspirational-speak.
I read that a long time ago. And another similar book by (or about) a monk. And of course there was that self-published orange book by a self-described swami in LA who got sober and was miserable.
DNotS is easy to reach. Sinus infection and jet lag. 😀 That’s why, yes, DNotS is real but no, don’t take yourself too damn seriously because ordinary and transient factors can cause despair. Not everything is an existential crisis.
Be real. Show up. Keep showing up. And maybe consider the 10% advice. Dial back the intensity from 100% to 90%. Not quality. Intensity.
Today I had breakfast. It was adequate. This is enough.
Cold. Rain. Sinus infection. The maid is cleaning the room, so I am downstairs in the lobby. Waiting until I can go upstairs and lie down. Perchance to sleep.
And so it’s time to write. There is nothing quite like sinus infection dreams: a rat race of thoughts, going nowhere, in a circle, shards of ideas, and always doomed.
It’s hard living with that brain, and not being able to escape it in sleep. . . .
At least I’m in an interesting place on this planet.
This is a life. My life. It is real.
Could I make another one? Of course. Just point in a direction and start walking. any direction at all.
The operational aspects of life matter. I’m not going to transform by reading a book. I’m going to transform by doing something. And since I am always doing something let’s synch up and get the ants marching in the same direction. More or less.
Back to physical and psychic liminal space today. Check out of the hotel, wander around for a while with not even a hotel room to call home, then head to the airport for the next leg of the journey.
The experience is not enhanced by a sinus infection.
Slow and steady today. One foot in front of the other. It’s hard to think and doing seems overwhelming right now.
Drop down a gear.
Why do I want to do something great? Soon enough I will be dust, and so will my children and everyone that ever knew me. To be remembered by people I don’t know, people I will never meet? Of what value is this to me—or them?
Why would I not want to do something great? It is a tree’s urge to grow to its limits. It is a man’s urge to explore and build whatever he can, regardless of payoff for himself or posterity. The payoff is outside my control. The doing, the action. That is within my control.
Both paths lead to the same destination.
Am I thankful that Marcus Aurelius wrote his thoughts? Of course. And he did not intend them for me.
And the thoughtful 10,000 wise men from Roman time until now? Their thoughts, their wisdom, their guidance . . . nonexistent except for the ripples they caused through each generation.
Memo to self: Stand and fight. Go do shit. Anything you like — it doesn’t matter what you do, and it doesn’t matter if you succeed or fail. Don’t take the “in the long run” as an excuse to be passive. It’s a reason to swing for the fences. Strike out or grand slam. Who cares?
Right now a number of things are going sideways, and you have a cold. This will pass. You will soon be on top of the world. That, too, will pass.
Edit: add this thought from William James:
“Every smallest stroke of virtue or of vice leaves its ever so little scar.”
A different way to start the day. Still writing but let’s not use the bird app any more for publication.
Today is a day to go outside, work a while, then come back to earth and work in the hotel room.
Yesterday was a day of unpleasantness and anger. The people and the work load they handle is a question to take on. My work load too — I’m getting nothing done for client work. This is unsustainable. meaning I can keep doing it but I’m unhappy.
How to do this?
How to move in that direction?
Or do I abandon the online writing stuff?
Traveling. I am not getting anything done. wonderful for mindspace, perhaps. Not so wonderful for writing.
I’m in liminal spaces: hotel rooms, coffee shops. Is it any wonder that my mind is the same? Not focused, not here, not there.
Let’s try an experiment today. Go park yourself somewhere outside the hotel for one hour, with coffee, and set yourself to answer a single question.
In that coffee shop one block over. It is off the beaten track.
Keep asking. Keep answering.
I’m in a liminal space for a couple of weeks with the ability to question, answer, and change.
My tentative answer — emphasize the writing — coalesces. I will have to ask the people this week this week about what they read and why.
And keep on it. Script day today. I need to get ahead of schedule.