Reality Laughs

When you’re writing for yourself and don’t care if other people read it or not. Or buy or not.

When you go where you want to go for lunch, reviews be damned.

When you wear the shoes you want to wear because they’re comfy, whether or not they are fashionable. (Hint: fashionable is the opinion of others, an opinion most often created commercially).

Twitter again has been sobering. At a superficial level (which is all that I can see) it is 100% marketing, 100% of the time, by 100% of the users. Only some of the marketing is commercial. But all of the communications are marketing messages.

Ok let’s say 90% marketing. There is a small and visible element of apparently sincere, one-to-one care and attention. One person sincerely caring on a non-performative level for another person. But even that is suspect: is the personal connection sincere or manipulative? Who knows.

I am on Twitter . . . why? Same reason as everyone else. Get followers. Why? Make money. Why? Money is good. Why? Uhhhh.

I am on Twitter . . . why? Because my brain wants a treadmill to run on so it feels the appearance of accomplishment, which is so much easier to reach than marching through the drudgery to real accomplishment.

I am no better than everyone else.

But this is back to the headline. Life is simple when . . . you don’t care about the analytics. The praise. The payoff. Just do something, because it feels like the right thing to do.

Life is only real then, when I am.

(If I can coin a phrase, haha).

Now. A hotel room in Milan at mid-day, looking through the window at the Pirelli Tower outlined against a grey sky, with Rachmaninov’s Piano Concerto Number 1 in D Minor playing quietly on my iPad. The window is open and the cold winter air streams into the room and feels crisp and invigorating.

God is alive. Magic is afoot.

(To coin a phrase, haha).

Is not where I am. I’m starting with an accumulation.

True in the micro. Starting the day with jet lag, sinus infection, lack of sufficient hydration, sleep deprived, nowhere to go.

True in the macro. The accumulated knowledge, assets, momentum of my existing business. The cash flow needs of education and family support.

True in the meta. Mindset, perceptions.

No one starts from zero, as appealing as it sounds sometimes. There is no such thing as a clean slate.

Why do we want a clean slate, anyway? Why start from zero? Maybe to shed the perceived limits of current reality. Others see the assets that we have. We see that those assets are, on their flip side, liabilities. Anchors are anchors. Could be good, could be bad. Depends.

Go to where the asset is underpriced. Me? There is no one like me in Bangkok. Go there. That’s an example.

But the mythical “start over” is just a fantasy. Even my total reset a few decades ago wasn’t really total. I brought things with me. Some academics and credentials. Mindset of hunger. Others who reset at that time also brought attributes with them. And paid the price for it, just as I paid the price for bringing mine.

There is no zero. You always pay the price. Reap and sow. Cosmic balance of asset and liability.

Keep trudging.

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?

1. Less administrative stuff done. Period. Just stop.
2. Less overhead. Lower the rent etc.
3. They are self-sufficient and self-directed. Could be independent if they wanted to be.

How to move in that direction?

Or do I abandon the online writing stuff?