Here’s a thought that hit me again recently – in order to know what I should be aiming for, maybe it’s best to look at who my heroes are. Anyone I’ve discovered and tried to emulate is almost by default doing what I want to do, even if I don’t know that’s what I want. On the other hand, not having a hero doing the things I ‘think’ I should be doing, should make me question that choice.

            For instance, in theatre, I’m drawn to William Shakespeare and G B Shaw, not necessarily Richard Burton or Alec Guinness. While I enjoy the two actors’ performances and wish to emulate their work, I’m far more interested in writing great plays.

            I know the names and works of a couple of dozen authors and a nearly equal number of artists – I can’t claim to know the names and work of more than a handful of architects or engineers. I neither know nor care about the names and stories of entrepreneurs or businessmen. Even the space explorers, the original astronauts, no longer inspire me. They were once my heroes – now, less so. The names of people I would consider to be my heroes are few:

            Leonardo da Vinci – the Renaissance Man. Artist, scientist, engineer, futurist. A man far ahead of his time.

            William Shakespeare – writer, actor, director, entrepreneur. He changed the very fabric of not just drama, but the English language.

            Benjamin Franklin – scientist, writer, entrepreneur, politician. The original American genius, and, I would argue – the true Father of Our Country.

            Ludwig von Beethoven – musician, composer, businessman. A man of towering passions.

            C.S. Lewis – writer, teacher, Christian apologist, logician. A great-spirited man who could write children’s books as well as heavy theological essays.

            Richard Feynman – scientist, writer, raconteur, artist. The guy who finally made scientists ‘cool’ to the younger set.

            I note that the terms ‘scientist’(3), ‘writer’(4), ‘artist’(2) and ‘entrepreneur’(3?) show up more than any other in the list. It should come as no surprise that I lean heavily into these areas. Beethoven is the odd man out, but I keep him in the list because his music speaks strongly to me. I have gone into great detail about these and others I would consider ‘icons’ in my previous blog ‘My Influences’ – see more there.

            I’m not actually trying to reinforce earlier conclusions I have made about my life choices, though I may have inadvertently started out that way. Instead, I’m trying to see if there are any other, less obvious, conclusions I can draw from the data. What can we say about these men that I have not explored before?

            Of all these men, only two – da Vinci and Beethoven – were unmarried. Of all of them only two – da Vinci (again) and Lewis – were not ‘ladies’ men’, i.e. had more than one female partner. Leonardo is thought to have been gay, and Lewis was a confirmed bachelor until 50.

            All these men (possibly not Shakespeare) were well known as geniuses in their lifetimes. Each man handled this knowledge differently, but they all started out being pretty arrogant. Each of them (except possibly Beethoven) became humbler with age.

            I don’t know yet. Each of these men had wildly different personalities, lived largely in different time periods under different societal conditions and had different expectations. Some had an easy road to recognition; others were not lauded for their achievements until after death. All of them, by the definition of genius, were completely immersed in their ‘work’, to the exclusion of much else in their lives. Of all these men, only Franklin could be said to be moderately wealthy. Only one Nobel prize in the bunch – Feynman. Maximum number of children: 0 or 1 each. No conclusions. So, what am I after, here?

            I think, maybe, what I’m looking for really is some form of reassurance. I know that my future is to be a writer. I feel confident in my choice of career. I just don’t always feel certain about my abilities, my creativity or my reception. Frankly, I’m feeling kinda shaky right now.

            I have remarked elsewhere that it feels weird to me to be uncertain about my writing career, when I have been so certain (in the past) concerning subjects that I had no real knowledge in. I could hold forth for days on subjects I’d barely heard of – still can, occasionally. As a model of the Dunning-Krueger Effect, this rings absolutely true to form. I suppose that uncertainty is a good sign, but it’s still nerve-wracking. I no longer have any doubt in my mind that I should be pursuing a writing career – and probably always should have – I just doubt how good I am. From what I read from other writers, that is also a good sign. Makes good sense from an objective viewpoint but feels strange in the middle of it.

            Another thing that strikes me is that none of my heroes (even da Vinci) could have had any clue that their ideas and work would become so important. They may have recognized in the moment that what they were doing was somehow ‘good’ or ‘right’, but broad importance is something that only others can determine – sometimes many, many years later. Even I know when something I have written is ‘pretty good’, and I’m getting the impression that that is all I ever can know.

            So, getting the jitters is normal. I have to believe that my heroes got them, too. It’s not going to stop me, any more than it stopped them, but I cannot finally know how true or important my work will be for others. This is something I will simply have to learn to live with. Yeah – I think I can do that.

Be well

bcd

            I understand that there are many people who want to know what an artist’s ‘process’ looks like. Personally, I can’t think of anything more snore-inducing, possibly because my own process seems so ordinary to me. At least, until recently. Let me cover the latest wrinkle.

            I read a lot – including, but not limited to – books about the craft of writing. Some are fun, some are weird, some are just boring – this tends to mirror my opinion of their authors. If you read these kinds of things as well, pick your own favorites. But one book I’ve been reading lately has been stinging me – if it continues to do so, I may have to buy a copy. The name of the book is Save the Cat! Writes a Novel, by Jessica Brody. Ms. Brody claims not to be a ‘plotter’ or a ’pantser’, but she is definitely a believer in formalized strategy. It seems to work for her. So far, so good. But some of the particular points of her strategy make me want to slap myself.

            She breaks up all scripts into three acts (uh-oh) and starts off by explaining how to build a hero character. The reader needs to see the hero prior to the Catalyst point, living normally but in need of a change. The hero should have something they want (extrinsic goal) and something they need (intrinsic goal – what my acting coaches called the subtext). Oy. I am kicking myself having to learn this stuff all over again, 40 plus years later. She goes on, basically explaining how to build a standard screenplay, with all the bells and whistles. This should be no surprise, as that’s where she got the Save the Cat! format. She was a screenwriter first. Two points to Ms. Brody.

            Looking at my own work, I can see where I dropped the ball. I didn’t have a clear picture of my protagonists built up, partially because I failed to go through my acting exercises and make sure they were solid. Having all the information and subtext in place would have given me clear direction for writing. When goals and subtext are strong and clear, you have to work pretty hard to write a wimpy character. I didn’t have too many problems in ‘Soul Surgery’ because most of that stuff was included in my original synopsis of the story. I just had to iron out a few details. But with ‘Journey’ (working title) and especially with ‘Icarus Falling’, I lost my hero somewhere in the sawdust. In the case of ‘Icarus’, I even lost the story – which is why I’m going to start it from scratch a fourth time. ‘Journey’ just needs fleshing out. Major. Fleshing out.

            Ms. Brody goes on to talk about the ‘beats’ in the script (another nod to screenwriting) and talks about ‘rising’ and ‘falling’ action, ‘false victories’ and all the other milestones on the way to the climax. The beat just prior to the climax is even called ‘All Is Lost’ – where the ‘bad guys’ achieve what looks to be a crushing victory. Then the hero goes through a ‘Dark Night of the Soul’ and finally learns his main lesson (fulfilling the subtext) and turns the tables on the bad guys. She goes on to say that the bad guys don’t necessarily have to be physical enemies – it can be the hero’s own dark side.

            The dumbest thing about this whole business is that I already knew all this stuff – I just forgot it. I feel ashamed. I very nearly ruined two – and possibly more – stories because I forgot the simplest rules for writing them. I will do better, now.

            I went back over the first few pages of ‘Journey’ yesterday. They feel really thin now – in fact, I see no reason why anyone would be interested in this guy, initially. That’s not fair – not fair to the character. I’m planning on adding a minimum of four or five pages to the opening, and Lord knows how much more to the rest of the book. Partly, I’m doing this to make the characters more believable, but I also need to add in a lot more description. My characters very often feel like they’re sitting or walking in a fog – there are no defining marks or sounds or smells to put my readers into the scene. I’m still likely to keep things pretty sparse, however. I dislike long scene descriptions – I consider it ‘purple prose’ and I avoid it.

            The upshot is, I continue to screw up, but I also continue to learn how to do my job. I suppose that’s the best path – to continue to learn despite my ridiculous hubris and mistaken assumptions. One ‘a these here days, I’m gonna learn how ta’ write good. I just need to stay open to correction and apply what I’m learning. Thank you, Ms. Brody. My journey continues.

Be well,

bcd

P.S. – I apologize for the over-long time between posts. I’m taking steps to correct this. Thank you for your patience.

            Okay, initially I was writing a blog titled “Red vs Blue” – I was kind of soft soaping the whole political thing because I hate politics. But now you morons are forcing me into the fray. You asked for it.

            Liberals – will you get your shit together, please? You have serious issues facing you, serious inroads are being made into basic human rights, and you just stand there and dither. Pull your big boy pants up, strap on those gloves and FIGHT! Since when did it become okay to watch the Extreme Right have a field day, tearing up all your hard-won advances and pissing all over your platform, and you not lift a hand to swat them? ‘Oh, well, we don’t want to be like them…’ Direct, brutish action is the only thing they respect – beat some respect into them!

            ‘Conservatives’ – if any of you actually deserve the moniker – What. The Actual. FUCK? It’s bad enough that you idiots are on some kind of holy crusade to eradicate women’s rights – I mean make abortion illegal (my bad) – but are you actually going to stand there, looking sideways – and secretly cheering – while one more school shooting nightmare happens? Are you REALLY? Let me tell you something, the gun lobby has been leading you around by the balls for way too long. Slap their hands away and DO something about the carnage being caused by military-grade firearms in the hands of the angry and stupid, or the guys across the aisle will.

            And here’s a message to the few actual Republicans still left in the Republican Party – the Tea Party is not your friend. Between them and the Religious Right, they have overrun my party and ruined it. Yes, I’m an old-school Republican, and I detest what has happened to my party in the last 20 to 40 years. It used to be a bastion of level-headed, stable and honorable people dedicated to easing the country into the future in a well-thought-out program. Now it has become a hive of stiff-necked, holier-than-thou, white-washed thugs. These hooligans are hell-bent on undoing every social advance of the last 70 years, and if they could find a way to kick scientific literacy to the curb, they would. These people are not the Republican Party – they’re the Fascist Party. Their greatest joy would be to hold our entire nation under the thumb of police oppression while simultaneously marching our military rough-shod over the rest of the world. THIS MUST BE STOPPED.

            By the way, anyone who campaigns under the title “Constitutional Conservative” has no idea what they’re doing. They’re not conservatives, the word has no meaning for them. And I guarantee that NONE of them know what’s written in The Constitution of the United States of America. They’ve never read it. They’re parroting what the money men who started the Tea Party are telling them to say – they can’t think for themselves. We need to keep these people out of any office more important than dogcatcher.

            I am not now, and I never will be a Liberal. I can’t see my way to switching allegiances to the Democratic Party. You folks have almost as many empty-headed blunderers in your ranks as the Republicans. But the people that have sullied my party just make me damned angry. You haven’t made me into a Democrat – you’ve made me into an enemy. You won’t like that.

            Here we go.

            bcd

            It’s become something of a joke. An old man sitting on a mountaintop, an earnest seeker climbing the mountain to ask the holy man the Question! (Why does the ultimate question always have to come with embellishments, anyway?) The old man allows the seeker to approach and says, “What do you wish?”

            “Oh holy one, what is (drum roll please) the meaning of life?

            “Oy,” says the old man, “I though you was gonna ask me a hard one! That’s easy!  Not being DEAD… is the meaning of life.” Or something equally banal.

            Don’t get me wrong, not being dead is a good thing.  Ask anyone… except a Goth.  But after gorging ourselves on food, oxygen, warmth, excess income, sex, and our favorite chemical recreations, a few of the more thoughtful among the human race begin to ask the next question: “Is that it?” The hedonist’s answer would be, “NO… now you go after more of the same!” The existentialist would say, “Is what it?”, the nihilist would reply, “Oh, nothing…”

            Everyone answers the question a little differently. Some say to look within, others insist on trusting an outside power, still others try to tell you that the question has no meaning, and you should forget the whole business. The actual answer is a bit elusive – some would call it double-talk, but here goes: the meaning of life is the meaning you give to it.  Seems simple, doesn’t it? Maybe even a bit too simple. Actually, the answer is correct, it’s the question that needs clarification.

            To state the question more succinctly, I would suggest that what most people want to know is, “Is there a Grand Scheme of All Things, and where do I fit in, if at all?” The answer to that question requires a lifetime to answer. Because, in plain point of fact, a worthwhile and meaningful life is not a destination to be attained, it’s a lifelong journey whose full worth you can only understand at the end of it all. This is not a journey to be undertaken lightly.  What you’re actually seeking in this case is not knowledge, but wisdom – and the road ahead is rough, dangerous and largely unmarked. You’ll have to trust me on this one. I can’t help you, because no one can.  All I can pass along are a few guidelines, a suggestion or two, and my best wishes.  Come back and tell us what you found.

            Some guidelines for internal reinforcement:

1. Read the Bible.  I don’t care if you’ve been a Baptist all your life or have never had any interest in religion of any kind; there’s stuff in there you need to know.  Skip around as you like but read the book of John from cover to cover.  Leave the rest until you feel you’re ready for it. Whatever you do, don’t try to start at Genesis and read through!  You’ll never make it past Numbers, I promise you. Also – don’t think you have to join a study group (unless you want to) or read the book in a style you don’t understand.  Modern language Bibles are everywhere, in all different languages. Above all, and this is going to sound contradictory – think for yourself! Don’t let anyone else ever tell you what the words mean, unless you’re completely stumped.
2. Keep a journal.  I’ve said this several times – there’s nothing like writing your own thoughts down on paper to force you to look at how silly they really are.  If you can write a little bit every day, wonderful!  If not, don’t worry about it.  Just keep at it.  You’ll discover your own reasons for this as you go, but the primary reason is clarity.  If your own thoughts aren’t clear, the confusion will spread to the rest of you.
3. Read everything you can get your hands on.  Any subject – you choose.  And try to vary your reading habits whenever you feel the need.  The point here is mental discipline.  It requires nothing of you mentally to sit and be entertained by someone else. Listening to music is better, but you still aren’t totally involved. Reading sets up patterns of logic and thought that will help you in seemingly unrelated situations.  Also – knowledge is power.  This simple phrase is a great deal truer than most people realize.
4. The less you talk, the more you learn.  This helps you develop another important skill: listening.  Also, when you listen to someone else, stop what you’re thinking and really listen.  By far the majority of people either impatiently wait for the other person to stop talking so that they can finish their own thought or are busily formulating and amending their own rebuttal to whatever the other is saying while the other is still talking! This is incredibly rude, and a great cause for anger and strife. Which brings us to:
5. Above all, do no harm to anyone or anything.  We all make mistakes.  We all say and do things whether consciously or not which harm our relationships: to each other, to ourselves, to the things and creatures around us, and even to the very planet we live upon.  The more we consciously avoid doing harm, the more peace and harmony we create around us and within ourselves.
6. Echoing the previous statement, be kind to yourself. Most people spend far too much time and effort berating themselves for real or imagined shortcomings. This is wasteful of your energy, destructive of happiness and joy, and colors all your dealings with others. When Christ said, “Love your neighbor as you love yourself,” he meant for you to learn to love yourself, too. To quote a different source, “This above all, to thine own self be true, for it follows as night follows the day, that if thou be true to thyself, thou canst not then be false to any man.” (apologies to Bill)
7. Express yourself creatively. It doesn’t matter whether you sing, dance, paint, do needlepoint, tell goofy jokes or draw stick figures, if it expresses how you feel – go for it. One caveat: don’t hurt anybody. That includes hurting people’s feelings. You may say, “Why should I care what they think?” Remember the Law of Reciprocity – it’ll probably come back to haunt you. But as far as art goes, pretty much anything goes. Not everyone’s going to like it. Most people probably won’t understand it (unless you get really good – more on that later). At the most basic level, art is good for the artist. For one thing, it teaches you how to see.
8. Take calculated risks. Nothing of significance or worth is ever accomplished without risk. A baby risks its knees and head when it tries to walk, and it falls constantly, but eventually – success! Again, a warning: notice that middle word – calculated. Running off blindly into a dangerous situation can get you killed. You don’t learn much that way. Not even how bad an idea it really was. Conversely, never getting yourself “into a bind”, never pushing out from shore, always “playing it safe” is just as dangerous. You run the risk of being one of those sad beings who “never feel either joy or sorrow, just a mild sense of disgust” (Rostand, loosely translated). Not my choice of fates, thank you.
9. Think for yourself! I’ve said this a lot already, and I’ll keep saying it. Your brain was not put in there to keep your head from collapsing.  If you don’t like what others are saying or doing, go your own way. Just because another person is older than you, has more education, makes more money or is your supposed “leader” – it doesn’t mean he’s right all the time. Even a genius is wrong sometimes. Don’t follow authority of any kind blindly. That leads to tragedy.

If we can each learn to think and act creatively, compassionately and truthfully, respect ourselves as well as others, and take joy in the simple act of living each day, we can live fuller lives and go a long way to curing the ills of our world.

Does all this sound like a lot? Does it seem like I’m placing an impossible task in front of you? Actually, this is one of the simpler and easier things that any person can do to create their own life. It simply requires a change of perspective. I haven’t even begun to get into the rough stuff yet. Most people, if they’re thoughtful and a tiny bit inquisitive, will come up with a similar plan of their own. So, find your own path – find your own meaning for life.

pax et ama

TGC

            Science and Religion. Science vs Religion… I’m right, you’re wrong…frankly, I’m sick to death of the whole damn thing. Let’s get something straight – science can’t prove religion wrong, religion can’t condemn science to eternal damnation. The two sides aren’t in opposition, at least not in anything like a real sense. They don’t even talk the same language. Science deals almost exclusively in experimental proof: hypothesis, data, extrapolation, logic – fact. Religion sees no point in dwelling on the merely physical: revelation, vision, enlightenment, even dogma – truth. Science deals with the physical world, even if a huge share of it is unseen. Religion deals in the metaphysical, even when it encroaches on the physical. The trouble comes when people let their prejudices into the picture, and their pride. As humans we have a difficult time understanding, let alone giving credence to, any point of view we don’t share. Scientists are just as guilty of this as the most strident mullah. If you want to make a scientist angry, attack his pet hypothesis. If you want to make a priest angry, suggest there’s no proof for God. But the fact is, when a pastor tries to pass judgment on a scientific theory, or a physicist tries to tread on spiritual ground, they’re both out of their element.  They’re simply expressing their opinions – they’re philosophizing. And you can change your philosophy every time you change your mind – and with just as much effect.

            Fools – so busy puffing themselves up and trying to look like they have all the answers when they’re actually not much better off than an average dullard who can’t even frame the question. Wrap your head around this – for all our wisdom, for all our knowledge, as compared to all there is to know – WE KNOW NOTHING. Some perspective, here – Isaac Newton (not a guy known for his humility) said: “I do not know what I may appear to the world, but to myself I seem to have been only like a boy playing on the sea-shore and diverting myself in now and then finding a smoother pebble or a prettier shell than ordinary, whilst the great ocean of truth lay all undiscovered before me.” He had it right, and frankly we haven’t advanced as much as we’d like to think we have since his time. The sum total of human knowledge hasn’t been able to get our feet wet in Newton’s ocean. Yeah, we know a lot of stuff – what about gravity? Newton measured it, figured out how it worked in certain cases, even wrote out a law or two. He still had no idea what gravity is. Turns out, no one else knows, either. Or how about this? 96% of the Universe appears to be missing. What?!? Talk about shoddy filing…

            And what about the religious side? We don’t want to leave them out. One of the really BIG questions – the nature and character of God; surely we have that down? Nope. Lots of guys big and small all through history have weighed in on this; some agree, others don’t, some just shake their heads. God ain’t sayin’. Mobs of mullahs, packs of prophets, the odd hermit – all talk about how great God is. Funny, though – most of the rest of what they have to say about the Creator is pretty murky stuff. Nothing you can really get a handle on. The only guy who had a genuine take on the subject didn’t talk about the Almighty nearly as much as he tried to get us to shut up and stop killing each other over words. He left too soon, in my thinking.

            What we need to do is learn that we really don’t know as much as we’d like to claim we do. It’s a great big universe – there’s plenty of room for everyone’s ideas. Only hubris is making us fight with each other. You know what hubris is? It’s pride – a really stubborn, unsupportable kind of pride. So, why the hell are we so full of pride about how much we know? Proud enough to go to war with each other over silly ass words. We don’t actually know anything. We all just think we do. And we get pissed at others who don’t use the same stupid words we do, even when we’re describing the same ideas. Madness.

            We’re like a group of children, huddled under the trees out in the Great Dark, trying to make sense of things – the dark shapes just outside the reach of the firelight, the strange noises and the cold. We don’t have much to go on, just what we can deduce from what we see and hear, and what we’ve been told by the other children that were here before us. Instead of fighting amongst ourselves, we need to care for each other and try to understand what the other children see. There are monsters out in the dark – some of them very real – and dawn is still far off.

            Be good to each other.

            TGC

            I feel like I have been mentally paralyzed the last few weeks. I’ve been ‘phoning it in’ at work, I haven’t been writing in any of my various projects, I haven’t been drawing or painting, I haven’t been writing in my journals – hell, I haven’t even put out a blog in weeks. To top things off, I still haven’t submitted any of my stories in months. What the hell is up?

            Turns out my moods went into stealth mode. Okay … that needs some explanation. I’m pretty sure I’ve mentioned at other points in this blog that I share an unfortunate connection with many other artists and creatives. I suffer from occasional bouts of depression (undiagnosed). Before I alarm people, let me say that while suicidal thoughts do sometimes occur, I never pay much attention to them. I’m not the type. Drink myself to oblivion, yes – shoot myself, no.

            In the past, my mood change would announce itself through mania, followed by confusion, then anger, hysteria, and finally full-blown blackout. These blackouts could last several hours or several days, accompanied by deep seclusion, endless self-ranting, crying jags and even occasional hysteric paralyzation. Dramatic stuff. They scared me to death. I thought I was losing my mind. (Turned out I’d already done that, but I cover that elsewhere.) A book put me on the road to recovery.

            I have long since lost the title and author of the blessed thing. I only remember it was a semi-clinical study of creative thinkers and their mental issues. One of those was Vincent van Gogh. The author made the comment that it was a real shame that his doctors had never prescribed a tincture of St John’s Wort – a well-known anti-depressant at the time – which might have lessened his episodes and saved his life. There was my answer! My research up to that point had revealed that the most common treatment for severe depression was ‘lithium’ (I don’t know the precise drug name – maybe Prozac?), and I had not heard good things about it. For one thing, it was rumored to cancel the creative impulse in an artist. For me, that would be like killing the patient to cure the disease. No, thank you. But St John’s Wort was milder – simply a ‘mood enhancer’, and furthermore a botanical. Minimal, if any, side-effects. The whole thing sounded tailor-made, so I went and found it.

            My ‘little green pills’, as I have dubbed them, have been a Godsend. They do not make me feel happy, per se, they make me feel nothing. And it is precisely that break in the emotional cataract that I need in order to get myself wings-level and climbing out of the blackness. I don’t use it every day, just when I need it. It has been so helpful for the last ten years or so, that I have trained my family to watch for signs of my worsening mood and ask me, “have you taken a pill yet?” By telling my family (and a few friends) about my problem and how I choose to deal with it, I have brought them in on my side and made the whole process as stress-free as possible. If you also suffer from depressions, dear reader, I highly recommend that you seek counseling first. I suffered in silence for many years because I refused to do so. But even if you decide to go my route, don’t leave your family out of the circle. They can be your greatest allies and your firmest coaches. Don’t do this alone!

            In any event, I went through a lot of experimentation, trying to find if I had any food or thought pattern related triggers associated with my condition. Turned out that sugar, and especially lactose and HFCS were making things really bad for me. I cut back on sugary breakfast cereals (a long-standing comfort food) and started using lactose-free milk. That one move pulled the teeth out of my depressions, and they started getting sullen. They came at me less frequently, but they came at me in a sneaky fashion – they didn’t waltz in roaring anymore, they started souring my moods and would trigger off of small setbacks and roadblocks. Nowadays it seems that my depressions are trying to stay beneath the radar, just hanging around like a background hum in a bad amplifier, not really triggering a conscious reaction, but souring everything I do.

            Now, of course, I’m on a severe carb diet because of my diabetes (see Old, Fat and Sick 3), so my depressions aren’t being given any fuel at all. So, of course the damn things have to find a different way to get at me. It looks like my asshat moods are actually trying to induce some level of shame in me while trying to distract me from my work and art. So, it’s trying to trick me into not doing anything and then trying to make me feel bad because I’m not doing anything. Did I tell you that I really hate these moods? Yes, I know they’re a part of me, but it’s a part I don’t want, and I just wish they’d dry up and blow away. Well anyway, the fight goes on. One of the worst effects of these moods is that when they get bad enough, they pretty much cancel my ability to work creatively. And because they’re being stealthy, it’s that much harder to see the problem coming on, until I’m at a dead stop and can’t figure out why. Under those circumstances, the panic sets in hard, and it’s really difficult to think straight.

            But the depression has made a mistake – I said they’re trying to induce shame in me. I don’t generally feel shame. So, yeah, they encourage me to goof off, which pisses me off, but they can’t control me. I have a solid hold on my problem now, and it doesn’t frighten me anymore. I can’t be afraid of going insane – I’ve already been there. The only thing it can do is sneak up on me and freeze me with my own inaction. But I understand that now. Soon I will close that door as well and be that much closer to having my moods under some semblance of control. I’m smart enough to be aware that I will never control these moods completely, that’s not written into the rules of the game. But I can and will have the upper hand. The first step in that direction is positive action towards my goals.

            So saying, I’d like to announce that I have sent my manuscript of ‘Soul Surgery’ out to a mainstream publisher, to see if they like it enough to buy it and print it. I’m not going to say I’m not anxious, because of course I am. But a rejection slip is just a note saying they don’t understand the work and wouldn’t be the right group to publish it anyway. I will not stop. I will find the right publisher, and the book will be available as soon as possible.

            Be well.

            bcd

            Alright, I knew this was a possibility, a whole series of doctors has warned me about it, but now it’s suddenly real. I am officially diabetic.

            I had a checkup recently, and as part of that, blood work. The good news: my thyroid is fine, so are my kidneys. My liver is … okay. The doc never even mentioned my prostate, and I was concerned about that. The bad news: my A1C level was 7.2 – I’m no longer pre-diabetic, I have Type 2 diabetes. My poor pancreas is tired and overworked. I suppose I shouldn’t be surprised – not only are my dietary habits awful, and I’ve been carrying around 60 excess pounds for years – but I had pancreatitis 3 times during 2008. I’m kinda surprised it took this long, to be honest. However, the doc was very upbeat. She thinks we can reverse this.

            Her advice was very specific, “From now on, you need to see all sugar as poison. Anything with an ‘ose’ suffix, you should avoid.” So, sucrose, fructose, lactose, maltose – just to list the obvious ones. No more donuts, no more fruit juice, very little milk, no beer. Y’know what? Okay. I’m good with it. Fats, proteins, vegetables, fiber – all good. I can do that. She wants to check my A1C level in another three months. If I can get it below 6.4 (pre-diabetic), we can work to get it even lower. Sounds good – let’s do this.

            So, I’ve been reducing my carbs as much as I can manage right now, and it has been having an effect – I’m having the ‘keto flu’! Yippee! (Ick) I remember doing the Atkins diet almost twenty years ago. I lost quite a bit of weight in a few weeks’ time. 15 pounds, as I recall. Of course, I gained it all back, with interest, when I went off the diet – but that’s been the story of my life. However, I don’t remember the keto flu – being tired, listless, cranky and weak for several days. Maybe it’s just too long ago, and maybe I’ve had too many other cranky days that had nothing to do with diet – I just don’t know. In any event, I’ll be happy when this stage is over. But the diet will never be over – because this is not a diet anymore.

            The possibility of permanent weight loss is a nice plus, but entirely secondary. This is a fight for my life. This is a fight for time – time to do my art, write my books, love my wife and family. Even more than going to the gym, this is a necessary change, a permanent habit, a low-level pain I must endure in order to avoid a far worse one. I must embrace the pain. Dammit. My own blog comes back to haunt me.

            I don’t yet feel the frantic urge to stuff my face with candy or down an entire box of donuts – but I have a sneaking feeling that it’s coming. It would help if I knew exactly how long I have to ride this out until the new eating habits become second nature. It’s the not knowing that’s going to cause the most anxiety and anger. But I can’t just stop and go back to the old ways, as much as I might want to. I’ve seen what happens to people who just say, ‘screw it’ and eat all the crap they crave. The obesity, the health issues, COPD, the constant blood sugar monitoring – not to speak of amputations, insulin and various ugly blood diseases. No, thank you. I’m not going out that way. I’m not going to shorten my life because I just have to keep eating pizza or drinking beer.

            Interestingly, there are foods and drinks on the ‘okay’ list that I didn’t exactly expect. Milk is marginal, but half and half is perfectly fine. Beer is not allowed, but scotch and other whiskeys are. Bananas are out, as is any fruit juice – but most apples and oranges are okay. Keto diets, and the very similar diabetic diets, recommend that you replace carbohydrates with fat. The reason for that is that once your body goes into ketosis, you actually run primarily on fat, rather than on glucose and glycogen. This gives your pancreas a break, allowing things to normalize. And because you’re running primarily on fat, weight loss is inevitable.

            Well, alright – despite my best efforts (or lack thereof), one of the scenarios I tried to avoid is now part of my life. No use crying about it. However, I find it strange that the very thing I tried to avoid is now going to force me to do what I knew I needed to do all along and could never seem to manage – diet. Or more precisely, change my dietary habits. I was already cutting back on my total intake, but now the composition has changed dramatically. Because I can’t avoid it, this new way of eating will become my primary way, my new habit. I am already getting back to the gym and back into my workout, though the keto flu has slowed me down a bit. So, in essence, this has just become a new wrinkle in the way I do things, a much-needed change of direction. I suppose I should even be grateful, in a way. I don’t feel sick, most of my internal processes have not been affected, and the prospect of weight loss is real.

            This is just another example of how a bad or unexpected and unwelcome twist in my life’s narrative can work in my favor. Weird, huh? I’ve seen a few of these. You’d think I might have learned by now.

            Be well.

            bcd

            Like many people, I’ve watched the news and listened to the pundits and commentators with increasing horror. I finally had to step away, have a thorough shake, and take a long hard look at the way things are going. It’s not encouraging, it’s not good, but it’s also not Armageddon. There are things that can be done to short-circuit the nonsense. However, we also need to understand what’s actually happening.

            The chief problem I see is that people are becoming polarized between two irreconcilable modes of thought: let’s call them faith and logic.

            Faith does not strictly mean religious faith. Faith implies a primarily emotion-based decision process, which leans heavily on received or established authority, whether from written or anecdotal sources.

            Logic is considered for this use to mean an emotionless and strictly logical decision process, whether based on legal or scientific sources. It is not an atheistic process.

            While there is occasionally some crossover agreement between the two camps, most commonly the two sides cannot agree on methods, goals or reasoning on any given subject. The rhetoric used by each side is generally not understood by the other, and therefore arguments from either side are dismissed as incomprehensible and invalid by the other. In other words, no argument raised by one side will convince the other side. Even the methods of logic used by one side are dismissed by followers of the opposing view. This creates an impasse.

            Because I am an artist and a practicing Christian who is also thoroughly trained in science, engineering and math, I find myself uniquely qualified to speak to and about both sides. This is an uncomfortable balancing act, I assure you. It is, however, not impossible. All logic, from geometry through higher order mathematics, is based on a series of assumptions which are unproven but assumed to be true. Every faith proceeds in a series of logical steps, regardless of the initial – usually inspired or authoritarian – precepts. The thing that both modes of thought have in common is that they are technologies – meaning that they are man-made. The universe at large neither knows nor responds to human thought patterns. Only human beings do.

            There are times when it is best to lean on cold, pure logic in decision-making – when buying a car or taking a test, for instance. There are also times when the emotive approach is better – when comforting a grieving friend or looking at art, as examples. Anyone who leans exclusively on one or the other approach will make many errors in judgement. Most people understand this. However, we increasingly find people – including ourselves – being polarized into two opposing camps.

            The people who are pushing this polarizing effort, and yes, very often they’re doing it knowingly, do not have your best interests in mind. Their goal is very clear – to obtain and maintain power over the people. These politicians know (you knew where I was going) that in order to convince you to do what they want, they have to keep you off balance – get you shouting about issues that have absolutely no bearing on anything real. They know that people who stop long enough to actually think about their message will realize that it’s completely bogus. And yes, I mean both sides. No matter who you listen to, you’re being played for a fool.

            The logic they try to get you to follow isn’t logical. The emotions they try to get you to feel – they don’t share. And they’re all lousy actors, as a rule. It’s embarrassing, really. It’s like being caught up in a huge, dysfunctional and none too well-designed circus. You start to feel like you’ve been robbed. And you have. Like any game of Three Card Monty, the dealers fleece the public as long as they can, then move on. The only way to win is by refusing to play their game.

            Here’s how to win: whenever you start to feel outraged or super patriotically inspired by anything any of these pretenders are saying – stop. Take a step back, breathe for a moment and then really examine what’s being said. God didn’t give you a brain just to keep your head from collapsing. Once again, I repeat myself – think for yourself. If, on cool reflection, you still believe that one side has your best interests in mind – then, by all means vote for them. But don’t automatically dismiss the arguments of the other side as being harmful or evil. Hold these people to the standards they profess. Make sure they’re actually doing the things they say they’ll do. If they can’t or won’t do what they say, they’re just lying to you. You deserve better – demand better.

            Finally – stop letting these people run the show. You’re smarter than that. Don’t buy into everything that either side has to say – especially if they’re screaming to get your attention. You can use both logic and faith to get what you need. The two approaches are quite effective by themselves – they’re even more powerful when you understand both positions and use both approaches to make them dance to your tune. Start calling the shots – they don’t know how to respond to that. What they do understand is that they need to do what you want if they expect to keep their jobs. You have the power – use it.

            Be well.

            TGC

            Life really isn’t all that tough. Granted, not having any money or being really ill or living under a brutal government can be a severe trial – but most people don’t have to contend with anything so ugly. Living boils down to some pretty simple steps – obvious stuff, really.

            Rules for Living –

1. Always have a job to do. Work isn’t just something we humans do to provide for our families or to make money or to impress others. Work is very good for us. It makes us think, it stretches muscles, and it makes us feel better about ourselves. So does walking, by the way. Nobel-Prize winning physicists have often taken long walks (miles) every day, because it helps them think better. We are built to walk, we are made to work – do both.
2. Read everything. I have a personal beef against ‘spoon-fed’ entertainment, but that’s my quirk. I understand that videos and games and audio entertainment are the rule of the day, but it’s not sufficient. Your brain is not fully engaged in any of those activities the way it is when you read. Studies are coming out now that show that your brain actually grows and grows in complexity when you read. And don’t just read what you’ve read before – expand your horizons. Read the stuff that you sneered at in school – most of it is pretty good. And something amazing happens when you read – you start to learn.
3. Keep a journal. The first conversation you must have is with yourself – write down everything you think, everything you believe, all your gripes and triumphs. Come back and read it over again a week, a month or a year later. You’ll be surprised at how your thinking has changed. And how silly some of your ‘very serious’ ideas really are. It also helps tremendously to have a place to keep your truly good ideas, so you don’t lose them.
4. Love your family. I’m not saying don’t fight – we always disagree most intensely with the people we are closest to – just don’t let anger push you apart. We are given families as laboratories to learn what love truly is, and it’s not just warm feelings. Love breaks down barriers between people and within people. Remember – the way we love best is to treat others as we would wish to be treated. Always choose to love – it’s the most radical and dangerous thing you can do.
5. Get out the door and engage with others. Humans are social animals; we need contact with other humans in order to thrive. And I’m sorry, Skype and Discord don’t really count. Sure, you’re talking to someone else ‘in real time’ – but they’re not really there, are they? (Strictly texting is stupid – you’re putting yourself in a very small box.) Communication happens on a dozen levels at once – sight, smell, subtle cues and broad strokes and all in the space of a heartbeat. And speaking face to face to others is public speaking on a small scale – it grows your courage.
6. Find your tribe. Humans are also tribal beings. Our society ascribes the most success to those who influence vast groups of people and who have hundreds of people on their ‘friends list’. That is actually toxic. No matter what dreams of fame and glory you may have, you will always function best and grow best amongst a small group of your peers and friends. Again, I’m not saying to exclude everyone outside of your little circle – that’s just as damaging. But find the people you can be your most authentic self with and help them be their truest selves as well. Always choose love.
7. Pray. As you work yourself out of your illusions of superiority and personal solitary awesomeness, you begin to understand that there truly is an element to the universe – a Being, if you will – that we can neither see nor understand, let alone control. You will find your own way into a relationship with this Being, and you may even find your way into belief in a religion (it does help for certain things), but contact this Being as soon as you can, as often as you can. Just pray – there are no rules for this. By the way, reliance on a Higher Power does not make you weak – we start out weak, it just takes some people a long time to understand that – it actually helps you get far stronger, but in a way where your pride is not involved. That’s actually good for you.
8. Think for Yourself. This is one of my most repeated maxims, and for good reason. Very few people have the guts to do their own thinking, usually letting other people do their thinking for them. That’s how slavery starts. But democracy, and indeed freedom, requires a population that can make intelligent decisions based on facts. Tyrants try to convince you that thinking is too difficult, you should leave the job to them. Don’t let them win. Whether in the boardroom, on the playground or in the bars and clubs – loud, pushy, violent people will try to intimidate you. But a thinking person is more powerful than a strong man – they know this and fear them.
9. Create. Sing, write, draw, dance – even if you only sing in the shower, write in a private journal, draw stick figures or dance like an old white man (me) – create something every chance you get. It is the key to joy.

            Okay, that’s the simplest list I could come up with, and I promise you it cost me a lot of embarrassment, anguish and time to find out these truths. Other people will tell you lots of other things, changing words around, adding in their own steps, what have you. But I’m fairly certain that if you start with these principles and try your best to hurt no one on your journey, that you’ll find your own way.

            Good fortune and good journey.

            TGC

            Madison Avenue has a hell of a lot to answer for. They spend a huge amount of money every day to convince you that black is white and wrong is right. ‘Don’t drink tap water – ugh! Drink bottled water, instead.’ Wrong. ‘SUVs are better than station wagons.’ No, they’re not. ‘You deserve to retire at 40!’ What? ‘Fat makes you fat.” No, that’s sugar. And on and on and on. And you believe everything they tell you. Stop it. They’re lying to you. Think for yourself.

            My bone of contention today is a phrase that nearly everyone would agree with (which is part of the problem) – “the children are our future”. No, they’re not – at least not in the way that’s commonly understood. In the sense that children are the next wave in the human race, I would agree. But most people, I think, don’t interpret it that way. The most common interpretation would probably be: we can’t find our way out of these problems, but here come the future Einsteins and Lincolns – they’ll solve this. That’s just passing the buck. It’s the same damn cowardly knee-jerk refusal to face your own problems as your parents did to you and your grandparents did to them. ‘These problems are too big, I’m too busy, I don’t really care – let’s hand it off to the kids. It’s their problem now.’ And Madison Avenue is also responsible for this.

            People are quick to point out that even Socrates groused about the younger generation and how they were spoiled, soft and lacked discipline. It’s a common old-guy gripe. But it’s only been in my lifetime that the concept of a Generation Gap reared its ugly head. It may have been popularized by political pundits, but it was created by advertisers. Youth Culture is a sales tool. Our ideas about the schism between the old and the young were bought and paid for and handed to us as if they were self-evident truths. You’ve been swindled. There’s nothing overwhelmingly good or bad about any generation – people don’t really change all that much from century to century. Political parties come and go, countries rise and fall, technologies advance and then are replaced – but people and their basic needs never really change. We forget this.

            People also forget that it’s the responsibility of the older generation – the ones with all the money and the political power – to work on and hopefully solve every problem they can touch. Not so they can lord it over the youngers, but so they can hand off a better world to their children. Instead, they seem to want to hunker down and protect their own gains, and let the kids deal with ‘the problems of the future’. The kids have their own future to deal with, one we’ll never see. The future we see now is our problem. The problems staring at us right now – the racism, political uncertainty and economic madness – those are for us to deal with. And yes, in many ways those were handed to us by our elders, because they also believed the lie. But if we hand them off to the young to solve, we increase their burden, we set them up for failure. This is grossly unfair. And what the hell do we know about the future, anyway?

            For all our vaunted intelligence and abilities, humans are horribly short-sighted. We romanticize the past and call it the Good Old Days, we recoil from the future as if it were the antechamber to Hell. The past was just as screwed up as the present, but we forget that. We choose to believe that somehow everything was simpler and better and sweeter back then. It wasn’t. We look at the future and are so myopic that we can only imagine a glittering Star Trek world or a dystopia that would make the Walking Dead look tame. You can’t change the past, no matter how much you want to – but the future is still unwritten. Maybe that’s why we’re terrified. The future appears to most people like this immense dark nothing – truly ‘an undiscovered country’ to borrow from Will – a place where the only thing we know for certain is that we’ll grow old and die and leave our children to carry on. Horrifying image, right?

            It doesn’t have to be. The future can be anything we want it to be – we simply have to step up and make it. The news media throws all kinds of terror, greed and suffering into our faces every day – believe it or not, that’s their job. (I’ll talk about this again.) But all that nastiness is not the whole story. There are people out there right now trying to clean up the oceans and the land, other people working hard to keep you healthy and safe, still others are working to get nations and groups to talk to each other rather than fighting. We don’t hear much about any of that. You may think, “I’m just one person, what can I hope to do?” The answer is: do whatever is right in front of you, do what’s right, do it now. Just as little changes in habit can make you healthier, wealthier and smarter, the little things you do for others add up. You can actually help change the world.

            The alternative, of course, is to do nothing. But if you do that, then you leave the future in the hands of others who are willing to do something. Are you sure you want that? If you leave the future in the hands of the loudest, pushiest people, you get more of the madness we see all around us. Instead, do what you can, wherever you can – and leave your children a better future. Also – teach them to do the same for their own children. Our world depends on this – and so does the future. Create the future you want to see.

            Be well.

            TGC