Anything

Today – a friend that I only know through the internet asked me to write something.  I’ll probably disclose the “what” part later.  Just know it’s good to be asked.  To have an assignment.

Baby goats landed during the blizzard last Thursday.  I’m not lying about goats being my bliss.  They make me skip and jump and sing and smile as if I had just won the lottery.

I sat and snuggled one of them Saturday morning.  The warmth of that little body against me, the quick heartbeat – natural even while resting, and that little noise they make on each exhale.  There isn’t an anti-depressant in the world that can make me feel the peace I feel when I’m holding a baby goat.

I’ve been looking around at the blogging for money game.  I have half a dozen blogs on different topics scattered around the internet.  Not all of them I like to share with everyone.  They don’t get many hits.  I know it’s a long shot, but I’ve picked one, added some paid advertising, and have started actively promoting it.  It can’t hurt right?  Nothing happens if you don’t try.

I’m playing around with making chainmail jewelry.  My first piece came out well.  I think I’ll give it to my daughter.  I’ve had an Etsy site on stand by for a long time.  I figure I should start placing things for sale on it.  I may not create at a production rate, but every little bit helps.

I have my whole household sitting in storage.  I’ve thought about cataloguing everything and putting it on Ebay.  Have you ever wondered what you are worth?  I do.

I’ve been thinking alot about this book I’ve never read.  I meant to read it.  I still mean to read it.  I just haven’t yet.  It was recommended to me my companies last HR manager.  The same HR manager that thought I should throw caution to the wind, quit my job, and sell hats to the world for a living.  The book is “Making a Living Without a Job“.  I’ll order it tomorrow.

Until I get the rest of this figured out – I guess I’ll just keep writing.

And while I’m pointing fingers…

I absolutely have to point out this photographer that I discovered in Denver!

Okay.  I didn’t discover her.  She’s one of my best friends.

I know.  I know.  I’ve already pointed at her.  I pointed to her wordpress on my blogroll.  I pointed to her portfolio in the link under my picture.  It’s simply not enough.

She’s amazing.  She has vision.  She turns a portrait into a work of art.  Her love of light and shadow, her perception of self and others, her dedication to conveying the spirit of her subject sets her a world apart from any others I know.

She’s in love with photography.  Absolutely passionate about it.  This ain’t no photobooth at K-mart, folks.  She’s an artist.  Her enthusiasm for her work comes through in her portraits, and her burning desire to do her work means that anyone sitting for her is transformed.  She spends too much time with her subjects, too much energy editing the shoots, and puts far more of herself into what she produces than she could ever regain given what she charges.

From the perspective of a friend?  This makes me absolutely crazy.

From the perspective of a client?  Who wouldn’t want someone that was going to put that much of herself into what you are paying for?  Value, folks.  Value.

So, why then, I ask myself, isn’t she making more money?

Advertising.  Expensive stuff.

The way I figure it – the human race is her market.  She takes pictures of people.  People read.  I write.  So, I’m here to tell you about this amazing photographer I know.

Brandie Bond

If you live anywhere in the Denver area you should follow this link and remember this name.

Pssst.  Pass it on.

Inspiration

“A rather interesting stimulus is stretching of the anal sphincter muscle,
which causes inspiration.”
~ Understanding Human Anatomy and Physiology
4th Edition page 278

Several years ago I was taking an introductory course in Anatomy and Physiology when I came across this quote in my textbook.  I laughed again and again as I read it.  Really, I still laugh about it.  I couldn’t help but think about how many people say that ideas come to them on the toilet.  Seriously, it was in the chapter on the respiratory system.

I spend a lot of time trying to stay inspired.  It is an active and ongoing project in my life.  It seems the whole world is out to bring me down most days.  I quit watching the television.  I quit listening to the radio.  I don’t read newspapers and rarely even peruse a magazine.  I get some limited news information on the internet, but even that I try to avoid.

Occasionally I feel some guilt about ignoring the problems of the world.  My “philosophy”, though, has developed as follows:

The news feels like it is designed to leave you feeling depressed and powerless.  When they start ending news stories with a recommendation on how people can help, I’ll start watching the news again. 

For the most part this works well for me, although I did once end up dropping my kids off at school on a snow day because I wasn’t “in the know”.

I work in the administrative side of the healthcare industry.  I’m a problem solver.  I work to keep things running smoothly, but when they blow up – I fix them.  There’s a joke around the office that it that proverbial shit is rolling down the hill – I’m the one at the bottom that is going to fix it.  The buck stops here.  Yes, finance.

I struggle every day to stay inspired about my work.  I’ve known for a long time that it isn’t where I want to be, but for now it’s what I can do to support my family.  I try to find the service in what I do.  I’ve kept a document on my desktop for the last five years that maps the convoluted trail of how what I do ultimately serves the greatest good of our patients.

It’s true that the industry couldn’t sustain itself without the money coming in, but it’s hard to look at western medicine and feel good about supporting it.  It’s in a perpetual state of crises management.  The industry (yes, it’s an industry) spends most of the time and money on treating the symptoms, and very little on identifying causes and prevention.  There’s been a lot of lip service on this front, but truth be told – I’m not sure that the predominant “American” need for immediate gratification would support an industry based in prevention. 

So – I’m left each day trying to stay inspired - to continue finding ways that I can believe in what I do.  I try to stay inspired to continue what I love in my spare time.  I have to stay inspired to continue slogging through the teenage angst and rebellion of my stepkids.

I keep the book “14,000 Things To Be Happy About” on my desk.  I have inspirational quotes cut out in cloud shapes and hung on my office walls.  I do a lot of positive self talk and try to find ways to keep it interesting.

Recently, a dear friend send me a link to this website: PhilosphersNotes

The tag line is “Concentrated Wisdom”.  I started listening to them in my office.  I’ve now progressed to running them onto CD and playing them in the car.  Only four would fit on one CD, but I have a commute that is a full hour on a good day, and during bad weather can be two hours.  I’ve listened to that CD at least 8 times now, and think of it more as concentrated inspiration.

It has been helping me stay inspired through my day.  It improves my mood and lifts my spirit.  What Brian Johnson refers to as “Big Ideas”, I have always referred to as “duh moments”.  This wisdom – these big ideas – all come from universal truths.  I think that these ideas resonate so well because we already know them in our hearts – it’s just difficult to keep them at the forefront of our minds while trying to make our way through our incredibly busy daily lives.

Currently a subscription to his website is free.  FREE!

Since I’ve been using it for a little more than a week, free of charge, and have been reaping such a benefit from it, I knew that I would not be in keeping with those “duh moment” ideals if I didn’t pass this information along.  Brian keeps these ideas accessible by putting them in a format that will fit into those little nooks and crannies of time that you might have at your disposal.

If you’re in need of some wisdom, guidance, happiness, inspiration – I highly recommend you go give this a chance.  I’m not in kindergarten.  I can’t expect the whole world to stop and give me encouragement – but in a week I’ve come to find that Brian will.  And he’s giving it to me free – no strings.

So, while it still makes me laugh, I don’t need to go to the toilet for guaranteed inspiration anymore.  I’ve got PhilosophersNotes.

Thanks, Brian.

Storigins

It strikes me as funny this morning, that the more I write, the more I find I have things to write about. I find myself in a position, however, where I don’t necessarily have time to write about it. People have asked where in the world I come up with these ideas? How do I write stories? I’m not quite sure “why” it happens, but I have a little clue this morning on the “how”.

This morning on the way to work I was listening to the Philosopher’s Notes on the Joseph Cambell Companion. I’ve listened to it a couple of times, so my mind wandered a little bit as I contemplated my own heroes journey. I began thinking of my life as an adventure, and I began reframing my day in archetypes and looking at it from a mythic standard. It is actually quite amusing, although I realize that I am still at the beginning of my journey – somewhere in the dark forest.

Somehow these ideas began to spin out of control – no longer was my character static, but animated in my head. She burst forth on her journey and whole world sprang to life in my mind. Here I am – on the highway – the roads are icy and I’m stuck in bumper to bumper traffic. Yet, my mind is reeling off into some fantasy world where everything in my life turns to something fantastical – some of it very frightening – but amazing in scope just the same.

My magic wand, the one that I use to transport these worlds, is unfortunately quite difficult to use when I am wrangling the beast that I ride into battle each day. In fact, using the darned thing while trying to ride has potentially deadly consequences. What can I do? Surely these worlds will slip from my grasp back into the ether if I do nothing.

Red light. Quickly – I pull out my cell phone and send a text to my email with some key words to remind me of these ideas.

Green light. Traffic is moving slowly along the icy roads. I begin composing the beginning of a story aloud – speaking in a theatrical tone to emphasize the mood and tone of the story in my own mind.

The path was treacherous and frought with peril, but I persevered and arrived safely at my destination. I dismounted from the beast and made my way over to the door of the tower. It was locked. I stood for a moment, my fingers trailing along the icy door. I pulled on it again. It was not going to open. Thwarted? Not I.

To my right there is another door. I make my way over to it. It opens easily and the warmth spills over me easing the ache in my travelers bones. I was making my way down a long corridor when I encountered the powerful sorceress that inhabits this tower. I greet her with a smile and she laughs.

Ummm… wait.

Ok. Get your head about you now. That’s the CEO. Your boss? Remember her?

I shook my head a little as I made my way to my office. I grabbed my cup and was making my way to the elixir of strength – ummm… I mean I went to get a cup of coffee. Yes, that’s coffee in your cup.

Back down another corridor, I get back to my office. I remove the shawl of destiny from my shoulders and sit in the black leather chair behind my desk. I take a sip of coffee, and try desperately to forget that the villagers are in trouble.I’ll have to save them later. Right now I have to answer some voicemail, push some paper, and analyze some data.

Or else the sorceress might get angry, and then I might be trapped here forever.

Vulnerability

“The role of a writer is not to say what we all can say,
but what we are unable to say.”
~ Anaïs Nin

This quote stops me in my tracks.  I find myself at a total halt as I read these words.  They leave me feeling nervous and anxious.  I know why, but I don’t want to admit it.  I back up.  I stare at them for a few minutes wondering if I can actually write about this.  I realize that I already did.

I spent the last hour composing a blog entry.  When I got to the end of it I felt so vulnerable that I decided that perhaps I should set it aside.  Maybe I wasn’t ready to talk about it.  I should go back to that quote I was looking at the other day.  That quote that struck me so honestly – what was it?

It was this quote.  And as I read it again in the wake of setting aside my writing it digs even deeper into my chest.  I have to ask myself:

What are we unable to say?  What am I unable to say?

I’ve thought alot about this.  Not exactly in this context, but in the context of my life.  I’ve spent most of 2008 learning about vulnerability.  Everywhere I look I see the same ironic weakness.  Everywhere I look I see the inability – the lack of willingness – to be vulnerable.

This weakness is born of a desire to protect ourselves.  Unfortunately, the more I look at it, the desire for protection seems to create an atmosphere of insecurity and misunderstanding.  We keep our thoughts locked up in our heads, allowing our point of view, a rather singular angle of perception, to shape the world around us – to keep us stagnant albeit safe.

In the case of my writing, this has kept my creations safely locked away where no one can see them.  If I keep them to myself I am protected from ridicule.  Of course the downside of this is that it perpetuates itself and creates more insecurity.

Even as I write this, in its third version now, I continue to delete paragraphs and rewrite them, afraid that this information will make me sound neurotic and insecure.

Ok – now we’re getting somewhere.  I’m afraid of appearing neurotic and insecure.  This of course means that I believe that I am neurotic and insecure.  So, maybe I am.  If I’m to speak honestly, I think most people are neurotic and insecure in exactly this way.  That is why this closeted vulnerability is such an epidemic.

So, I ask myself – what am I afraid of saying today?  Today, I’m afraid of what those closest to me will think of my story.  I’m terrified that they will tell me that it’s no good.  I’m afraid that they will tell me it doesn’t have a chance.  I’m afraid that this will derail the momentum I’ve been building towards actually getting it finished.

I’m afraid of being told to that I should stick to being a data analyst.

I’ve heard over and over again that the cure for fear is to do the thing that you are afraid of.  So, here I am.  I’ve taken the first step and asked a few people to read the chapters that I’ve posted.  I’m still afraid.  Which means that I need to face whatever feedback comes my way.  It can’t kill me.  It can’t do anything to me that I don’t let it do.

The next step is to really put it out there.  I have a progressive list of people in my head that I would like to have read my story.  I hold back for the same type of fears and then some.  This week I will start asking them.  Perhaps I will start at the top of the list – the ones that I am most afraid of asking.

No Guts…No Story

“And by the way,
everything in life is writable about if you have the outgoing guts to do it,
and the imagination to improvise.
The worst enemy to creativity is self-doubt.”
~ Sylvia Plath

I am a writer and writers write.  That’s all that really makes a writer a writer and no one can tell me otherwise.  There are varying degrees of expertise which is why writers are considered a dime a dozen – just like artists.

I won’t tell anyone that they aren’t a writer or an artist.  Their work has some value to them – and I’ve seen so many published works and alleged objets d’art that didn’t strike me as worthwhile endeavors, but there was obviously a market for them somewhere.

Someone tried to tell me a couple of years ago that there is a definitive concrete aesthetic value that could be assigned to anything.  I disagreed and still do.  When I was attending the University of Texas at El Paso a date took me to an art exhibit.  I don’t remember the artists name – he was an older German man.  A huge deal had been made of him.  His works, as I remember, included photographs of nude men sprawled beneath disemboweled pigs covered in blood and instestines, and a large canvas that had been painted in haphazard “abstract” strokes with either blood or feces.

Concrete aesthetic value?  For me – this art held no value.  I was 17 at the time and I have to admit that I may have missed “the message”.  Perhaps there was some statement there.  18 years later I might have an entirely different response to the exhibit.  I only recall repulsion.  I will not however say that this person wasn’t an artist.  I can’t say that he didn’t pull something from deep inside himself and put it out there for everyone to see.

The hard part of being an artist isn’t putting it out there to be appreciated.  It is a willingness to be ridiculed, to have your value and your vision questioned, to be told that you aren’t an artist.  This is what people will feed you.  The appreciation for unique work seems rare to me.  Those that are lauded as geniuses and appreciated by the masses are those that have tapped into that “concrete” aesthetic, which I prefer to think of as mass appeal.  If everyone thinks it is beautiful it probably isn’t all that unique in nature.  That doesn’t mean that creating the piece required no skill – the ability to convey realism in color, light, and perspective – the same as in writing - indicates varying degrees of expertise.

And so it seems that the entire world of art, including writing, is entirely subjective.  I don’t know that I could ever be a critic.  I really want people to make up their own minds about what they are reading and observing.  They should have their own opinion on it.  I can only present for them my thoughts, and cherished is the friend that can disagree with me without imposing their opinion or devaluing my own.

So what am I going on and on about this for?  Because I write.  I write alot.  I have so many words and thoughts in my head every day that if I don’t write them down I can do nothing else.  They swim before my eyes and create a constant distraction – the elephant in the middle of my office that I am trying to ignore. I need to do it.  And I need to regardless of whether or not I’ll ever make a living doing it.  I need to regardless of whether or not anyone appreciates it.

I also need to remember that someone might.  There is a market out there somewhere – and the two fantasy novels I have sitting aside desperately in need of some editing – well they deserve a chance to find their audience.  That German artist?  He had guts.  His and his pigs.  I suppose exposing those novels to the world feels a bit like disemboweling myself, but ultimately I’m a coward if I hide them in the dark.

That’s what I’ll be doing in 2009.  Editing and submitting my art to the world and trying to stand strong against those that would ridicule and tell me I’m not an artist.   Oh – and I’ll be writing.  There’s this new blog I started today.  And a couple of other book ideas that have been in the stew pot long enough.

Here we go…