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Our country’s obsession with illicit sex generally manifests itself through courtroom drama. From talk of sleeping with teachers (every teenage boy’s dream, btw) to murder trials fueled by sex and the supposed sexiness of the alleged perpetrators. Jodi Arias, Amanda Knox, etc. So long as she is attractive, she is a relevant national story. I cannot blame the media for the obsession. Sex sells. Sex dominates the airwaves and fills the streets. This culture of sex exists because of our inability to have sex as individuals. The way we push it into the media proves that there is a belief that people need to see it in order to be satisfied, which means they aren’t being satisfied within their own lives.

I’ve come to think of the American culture as a culture of dissatisfaction. Being unhappy is the primary fuel source for capitalism. You buy to fill that need. You watch to fill that hole in your life and the gears of the national system keep turning.

I am not much for asking for help, so when I wrote the post yesterday about Bobby I got to thinking about his method and his ability to pull together so much material in a day. It reminded me of the graduate school days when I wrote all morning, went away from it for a spell and came back to it later that night. I think that is my method. I’m doing that as we speak, writing a draft of a piece with the idea of coming back to it later when I know I don’t have the mind to create but I do have the mind to revise. It seems like those are two separate mental functions. Creation takes a lot more out of me than revision, and requires that I haven’t been sullied by the cries and demands of a quarter-dozen screaming kids. That kind of thing eats away at my patience and ability to think clearly. Still, once they’ve trickled off to sleep I can revise. I can reach inside a story and understand what I was trying to accomplish and see if it worked/how to make it work…

Self awareness is important to me. I think it is the key to any writer’s ability to access the part of themselves that is real and vulnerable and slap it on the page for the world to analyze. More writers should think about these things and plan their writing times around the way their brains work. Not everyone can sit down and write till you hit ten pages. Not everyone can write for 4 hour bursts. The key is discovering the method that accesses your abilities when they are peaking. For me that could mean splitting the daily words into stages. It also must mean committing to daily words at a very high level. The words muct come first if you intend to be a writer for very long.

I have a friend, Bobby, who is a hell of a writer and productive beyond all human reason. In addition to a post per day yearblog for a major RPG corporation, he is writing his own story blog and working on several other major projects. In other words, this man is grinding like a stripper on the pole. He is writing and building his creativity and mastering his craft and surging towards his Gladwellian 10,000 hours.

In the past, things just had a way of working out for me. The past is catching up at last. It isn’t supposed to be a function of old age that your ability to float through life diminishes is it? I have no problem with hard work. I have the stomach for it, if not the time.

I thought–maybe sometimes still think–that my creativity has left me, that I fled that one great story I am meant to write. It is hard to be yourself when you are judged all the time, even if the judging is self-directed.

 

Some Thoughts:

1. Good play can ignite the soul. I had a good game today. I made a few interceptions and swatted a few passes from the LB position. It represented a total reversal from the last game a few weeks ago and coincides with the weight reduction. I have a long way to go. I ended up around 206 today after an explosive tip off the wagon into a giant cheesecake. I figured a good game could make up for it and it did–mentally. I feel like I really have a shot at dropping the next 10-16 before May.

Clearly nobody had enough sleep. I myself rose at five in the morning, and I lasted most of the morning before succumbing to a tortured nap. The kids weren’t so fortunate. They were tired and ornery for most for most of the day, getting in trouble for all manner of nonsense ranging from screaming to fighting to not listening at all.

Wifey wasn’t too pleased either. The partying was great, but the lasting fatigue serves as a reminder of party purpose: I am getting old. So old in fact that I am learning to accept certain physical and psychological regimens and complications. I must now, for example, exercise and eat well in order to remain fit. Once upon a time I could run a sub-4 40 yd dash after consuming two cheeseburgers and a crate of fries. Mentally I’ve learned that there are times where I need to take breaks–always after a large project. It isn’t a long pause. Usually I need anywhere from 1 to 6 days to recover and an additional 3-6 to fall back into the flow of a new project. So, we’re looking at 4-12 days between projects. I’m working on a series of mental exercises to bring that time back down to 24 hrs. The key in reduction is performing creativity exercises to refresh and spark the brain, as well as some mind clearing and relaxation techniques to relieve stress.

As always, I am a work in progress.

Tonight was the 38th bday celebration. I drank a lot and had a great time with all of my new neighbor friends. The whole day was a success. Strong and productive meetings in the morning, good afternoon shopping on a new paycheck, and to close, a party that wound deep into the night.

At the close of things I pitched an idea I took from a friend–a monthly gathering of these same friends where we could all partake in party and drink and remind each other how good and adventurous life can be.

I’m in a good space. I’m on the edge of completing some major projects, I’m reading good stuff, and I have classes that are both challenging and enjoyable. Life is good and I m loving it. I think this is one of the better times I’ve had overall in years.

1. There is something fundamentally wrong with planning aspects of your own party. It is as unusual as DJ’ng your own wedding, but I’ve been in the presence of both now. Tomorrow is my bday party and I’ve gotta get my costume, the food, my cake, and the utensils, and even the drinks. I’m not angry about this. I recognize that there are things that I don’t contribute on a regular basis and this is an opportunity to contribute in a time of need. Still, it is a bit odd.
2. Tomorrow is also a chance to move forward and incorporate an inclusive plan for developmental learning the style of which I’ve tried to incorporate at the collegiate level going on six years. Most of that time the plan was nascent and not even on paper. I seeded my ideas on white papers and now I have a chance to collect those ideas and see a programatic approach unfold with the full inclusion of the members of the dev team.
3. The oddity of the elementary school olympics continues. None of the teachers I communicate with at my mid-son’s school know anything about these olympics. Yet they’re supposedly taking place in two days…

 

 

It is a significant indication of maturity when the key item on you wish list shifts from sports car to laundry machine. It is another indication of maturity (perhaps post-maturation) when that list shifts back to sports car. I’m in that first shift. The things I want are plentiful once more, but most are about the family and making the homestead a better place. This is most likely a coping mechanism as I psychologically pull away from the home in an effort to delve deeper into my writing and the writer’s life.

There needs to be a balance between the two things: home and professional life if for no better reason than the existence of one provides ample context for the existence of the other. Either one is made less valuable without the existence of the other. A man who only stays with his family does not know the work world and thus that family time is always in the shadow of what could be. I suppose this is my primary argument against the existence of housewives. I feel like you need to have a significant portion of your life that belongs only to you, but then again I am a loner somewhere in my core.

 

Some Thoughts:

1. Gus is still the best thing on Psych. Come on, son. you know that’s right.

2. I don’t dream anymore. There is something fundamentally wrong with that…

The official weigh-in was 205.8, my lowest number yet and 10 lbs off the big weight I’ve been coming down from. It hasn’t been an easy road for me. The goal is to be the best me possible, and that goal requires me to buck up and exercise some courage, willpower, and determination. I have 15.8 (15.4 as of this post) lbs to go to make my target weight. It isn’t going to happen with just a diet change. No, I have to start working out in a serious way. Today I took a step forward, running a mile for the first time in nearly 6 months. I didn’t time it, didn’t try to set any speed records. I just tried to gut out an exercise that my mind did not want to complete. I wanted to quit at the .25 mark. I found excuses to be and do anything else. Still, I endured. I wanted to quit again at .5 and again at .7, .8, .88. Not till I hit the mid 9 range did I want to power through. It is a lesson in perseverance.

There are things in life that I want. Some of them I should not have, some of them will have dire consequences, and others are worth fighting for. If I am to be the best me possible it means weighing all of these things and putting the maximum amount of effort towards getting the job done. This has been a difficult thing for me, but it isn’t an impossible one. I know there is a better version of me in here somewhere. I just have to care enough to find it.

 

Some Thoughts:

1. I miss New York, but I don’t necessarily miss the New Yorkers. 
2. The NCIS production team is piloting a new show. They’re taking a page from the CSI playbook by introducing the new NCIS: Red team in a popular NCIS show. Red offers to be an interesting look at a female driven NCIS vehicle with a strong cast and a cool shooting style that is somewhat derivative of NCIS: LA

I’m starting this post about a half hour after getting home from the first day back to work after the break. I decided to ease in slowly to the work return, as my students are best served by a gradual return. Getting home after work I discovered that elementary instructors do not share my philosophy. The kids were riled up and overwhelmed my over-tired wife. I’m certain at some point she will up and go to the gym, most probably right around bedtime–the most disruptive time available. Of course, I should ask her to go earlier. That would alleviate a great deal of marital stress. That kind of stress is a negative in my relationship, but the main drama has to be caring for kids.

No, it isn’t the kids. As I said in the last post, the problem is having real world responsibilities while having kids of an age where they don’t appreciate that there is a world outside of the involvement that I have with them.

Having that outside life is becoming more of a priority with me. I enjoy these people I work with, and I want to find a way to spend more time with them. There needs to be a balance between me-time, work-time, work-friends time, wife time, family, etc. Finding that balance is big business. It is how life coaches make such a good living.

Some Thoughts:

1. In a decade I’ll have to mark these posts like star dates. 3701 doesn’t sound like a realistic number, but in 10 years from today that will be about the number of posts I’ve made and # of days, counting back to the beginning, that I’ve posted.
2. My fingers are so long and weighty that when I type the first word of a sentence I often find that the first TWo letters are capitalized and then I need to go back and fix the sentence.
3. The war between my two younger kids threatens to destroy the world. They act as if this is the immortal struggle between Lex Luthor and Superman. It is not. In fact, it is a silly recurring feud over who gets more attention.
4. Talis Out.

 

I’ve been watching The Following on FOX. The show depicts the battle between  a serial killer’s cult and a team of FBI agents bent on stopping the killings. The more I watch the show with a critical eye, the more I notice the connections these writers are making between the average person and serial killers. See, the people following the killer and carrying out his will are lost. They seek the guidance of someone with a moral compass; and with a plan and purpose. In truth they are a lot like church folk in need of Jesus.

The parallels are compelling and the sole difference is the size of the population that follows the religious compass vs. that of a serial killer. One prays to God and acts His will. The other preys on the living and acts their shared dark morality. They both want to be a part of something–anything larger than themselves.

I would argue that our recent national fascination with serial killer shows and ongoing fascination with salacious sexual and explicitly violent content reflects a gradual decline of the baseline moral code. So many web authors point to the parallels between Rome in decline and today’s America, but it feels like we aren’t quite there yet. Still that fracturing moral code was part of the upswing of the Roman era. It ended badly. I suspect the land of us may too struggle if we fail to understand the connective tissues between the baseline moral compass and the prevalence of outliers to that compass. In short, the more the compass erodes, the more likely we are to enter into a space where extremists on both ends of the spectrum prosper. On one end you’ll have the ultra-cons looking to send us back to the formality of the 1800’s and on the other there will be many who treat human life as they would any other infestation and take equal pleasure in snuffing it out–so long as they are recognized for their good deeds.