10 Minute Rule

I make a decent amount of money—so much so that I’ve fielded several calls from Unsolved Mysteries looking to reboot the series on the back of the story, ‘why am I so damn broke?’

I’m serious. I’m always very poor and it does not appear to change regardless of incoming income. I had an opportunity to talk with the mom of a son’s friend as she was dropping off her boy. She explained that she only makes 16 an hour and in spite of having 2 kids still manages to own a home and a car. I make more than her, and I have those things, but I don’t feel like I have the kind of money I actually make. It defies logic. The money spins into a black hole and is gone.

This feels like a very American story. At least it feels like a stereotypical American story about disposable income. It is also a story about chasing a life of things and activities when what I really need is the partner I already have. It is a story about wanting and needing and grinding only to realize that none of those things matter or actually make me happy. Instead my happiness was already in hand. 

So maybe the best laid plans is to get away from spending so much and get back to the pleasures of home. 

Maybe get back to writing while I’m at it. 

Started watching Tokyo Ghoul with the partner’s boys. Quite the interesting show there. I enjoy how some anime work so hard to talk about seriously moral questions and don’t openly tell you one side is better than the other. This is often the beauty of foreign cinema. There is a lack of moral quandary in American cinema that serves to reinforce what is quickly becoming a society of everyone thinking they are right, moral, and good.

Are we right? Are we moral or good? In truth we are capitalistic and all morals serve the dollar in the most basic sense. We form legislation primarily designed to promote wealth. We cloak it in religion but argue that we should legislate separate from religion. In truth we are a quilt of contradictions knitted together by people whose common interest is being rich and happy. Unfortunately, we have conflated the ideas of one with the other.  

Some Thoughts:

1. Having an interesting house argument about whether or not it is okay to “one-shot” the Hulk before he goes into full rage mode. My position on this is as such: Is it moral to attack someone before they become a real threat? This is the pre-emptive strike argument. Of course, one could make the argument that once Banner goes Hulk he automatically presents a threat, because he was already made angry. Of course the same threat could be assumed pre-anger. He’s gonna get mad, or as the MCU suggests, he’s always angry. So, no. Don’t one shot the Hulk before he goes full power. Don’t create the conditions for him to go full power on you. 

I stole a glance at the enrollment numbers for the creative writing classes I teach at the community college. Not Good. This does not come entirely as a surprise. I haven’t marketed the classes and as they don’t map to any degree pathway, they are basically classes designed for learning and work product. Less and less students are taking classes to learn. More and more are there to get a piece of paper that will help them get into the job they want or make it to the next stage of the education they require in order to get the job they want. Learning for the sake of learning is a relic of my university years.

I stole that glance because I know that school is about to wind up again and that means this vacation business is about over. I’m not happy about it. I don’t have that same desire to get up and be ‘on’ for five classes a day. I actually just want to kick back and work my way towards cultivating a better understanding of my personal motivations (this is psych-speak for lazy and just want to craft and write all day). 

I go back and forth on the school thing, but one thought that remains constant is that I want to put out a good product for my learners. It is all the stuff around that which makes me less inclined to show my face. 

The most important term I learned in sociology was Zeitgeist. It is reflective of the undercurrent of a society that subtly works to reveal itself through the fringe media we consume that eventually becomes the mainstream. It was this way with the zombie fiction that became all too familiar. Likewise most post-apocalyptic and now during apocalypse writings were indicative of an understanding of what was on people’s minds but we couldn’t quite give voice to. So, what is next?

It is the goal/role of a good writer to be the conduit between the zeitgeist and the story-verse. We pull these things together as if we were celestial bodies  spinning together the force of gravity and then channeling what is drawn in towards the reader. What we see in the zeitgeist we find parallels for in the story-verse and web together in order to create a message (or perhaps just a reflection) for people to interpret. That interpretation morphs into inspiration and the world—our natural world—is impacted. I know, it sounds like a lot. It sounds like a lowly writer making himself sound mythical, but what are myths if not stories drawn from somewhere to impact those in need?

So then, what comes next? I’m not certain. I’m listening to the zeitgeist and I believe I’ve heard a few things that thread to stories I’ve considered but haven’t fully committed to writing. Perchance it is time in this new year to write? The conditions are right for it. The universe has resolved to put a great deal of time in my hands and there is only so much crafting one can do in mines and so much bad tv to sift into the brain. 

I would argue that being a successful writer is the correlation of strong willpower and courage. In other words, Grit. The eponymous dictionary.com defines grit as, “courage and resolve; strength of character.” it is a word/term re-popularized as of late as an educational catchphrase (and oft excuse). I am not going to use grit right now but instead focus on the component of willpower.

I am writing this from the comfort of my own bed as I coast into the afternoon watching the Ny Giants struggling to come from behind to beat the Cowboys. That is to say that my willpower is questionable as of late. I have not been motivated to do much more than reflect. So, here we are, reflecting. 

The writers I know to be most prolific are the ones who have that inner push to get but in chair and produce fiction. This is regardless of their level of success from story to story. As a contract writer I tend to publish nearly everything, which while wonderful is no hope to the willpower. Will requires a significant test. You need failure to learn how to fight and you need failure to recognize the value of success. 

So, I’m going to be reflecting on willpower moving forward and trying to foster a deeper understanding of what it is, how I apply it, and what to do in order to make myself stronger moving forward.

Well, I saw Vice. While heavy handed at times the film was quite tongue in cheek in others and reminded us every step of the way that we are constantly being manipulated. The trick is being the one who tells you who is manipulating you. 

Hint: it’s not just one side. In fact the entire concept of ‘sides’ is a blatant manipulation and misrepresentation of what we are supposed to me as a nation.

Manipulations that I previously overlooked bubbled to the surface in the film. One strong example of that is the wording of the climate issue. Once chiefly referred to as Global Warming it is now primarily seen as Climate Change.  Which one scares you more? Yep, that’s the entire idea and thus the issue here. We have long been manipulated by the way language is used and by who we put our faith into and how. Fox News is perhaps the biggest culprit. Fox is nominally the largest news network in America and most watched in large swaths of America. By definition they are the mainstream. Still, they consider themselves exactly the opposite, the small outsider struggling to bring you the facts. At least they’ve mostly dropped the guise of ‘fair and balanced’

If you get your truth from the opinions of others who misrepresent those opinions and facts you will believe what they want you to believe. On a you do—once you choose a side—it’s hard to reverse course. 

The cruise directorship is apparently still active. The boys woke a little after 7:30 and played games for several hours before deciding they were bored enough to come to me for advice. I shouldn’t call it advice. It felt more like a demand for activity—a call to action in the passive aggressive form of , “what are we doing today?”

There are a million ways to respond to that question, but unless the answer includes an address, time, and dress code you are likely to get more questions. You are likely to get so many questions that taking down a kid starts to seem like a realistic option. So I said, ‘you guys decide’

After a considerably long resulting silence I offered, ‘we will go get haircuts at 11:30’ that was enough to chase them off for a while. They wandered back around 12:30 anxious to get on with it and that is how we ended up here watching my son’s Afro being shorn and shaped while he stares in a mix of amazement and uncertainty. After there will be lunch. 

The evening is a mystery to me. I’m not a very good cruise director, so I’ll probably argue for a video game and a movie. Maybe I’ll finally get to see Incredibles 2.

Some thoughts:

1. Finished another audio book. I’m getting to the point where I really need to start creating.

2. 

The last few blogs have come from my phone. I remember before I had one I used to write everything down in notebooks or use an audio recorder. I’d never go back to the majority of those notes and the audio remains untouched—even what remains on the phone. What I enjoy about writing from my phone is also what I dislike about the process: 

It lacks process.

Time and effort are different on the phone. It feels like I’m working less when typing on the phone, likely because there’s no ritual to it. I don’t sit down and go through the machinations of pulling out a laptop, finding a spot, and settling into the work. I pull out my phone wherever, handle my busines, and move on. It’s more carefree and perhaps more careless of a way of being. It feels very modern.

I believe there ought to be some manner of ritual to writing. I’ve played with many and haven’t gotten it down still, but the importance of one is. If lost on me. 

Part of the beauty of being off of work is being able to absorb a lot of fiction—audio and visual seems to be how I do things anymore. I listen to a lot of audiobooks and I watch a ton of tv. Really bad tv. My latest watch is called Travelers. It replaced Killing Eve when I fell asleep on an episode of that one. I decided to give it a try and then kept going. Here is where things get complicated.

The show has a lot of potential but is also limited because it has to work within strict and narrow parameters. It is about time travelers who connect back to a specific time to right the future. Within the scope of that argument we see that there are also five character stories based entirely on how these characters interact with each other and fall into their former lives. This is where the story is the most interesting at times but they keep the focus on the time travel mission, and there is where it all starts to fall apart.

The given future is basically a version of Hugh Howey’s Dust. The steps requires to prevent that from happening are vague and the missions the team or teams carry out are only loosely connected and difficult to make real sense of. 

In the end this show has potential but overall it is not a good show and lacks a great deal of creative power in terms of show to show action and plot. If it has more to offer it hasn’t yet.

I’ve been keeping myself up at night trying to figure out a way to stem plays off a slot I sweep base and incorporate it into a 10u no-huddle offense with hand signals. It isn’t the kind of thing people normally are consumed with, but I’m an obsessive compulsive with clear issues surrounding failure at sports, so it’s sort of a thing. The key is to not make it so big of a thing that it takes over, but I’m not entirely sure I’ve done a good enough job of that. After all, it’s nearing 11:30 and my brain has clearly honed in on the one problem I can neither quickly solve or matters at all.

There is something about immediacy that turns me off. Around 4 this morning I found myself trying to assemble a ping pong table for my boys and failing to do so before they rose for Christmas. I wasn’t a fan of the process. Given time and proper tools later in the day I enjoyed it and spent the time doing it right. The short of it is I don’t enjoy working under pressure as much as I do working at my own leisure. Of course a little pressure and deadline is needed but when things pile up and get close I tend to think about and do just about anything else.

Perhaps the best way to deal with my tendencies is to not get to that point in the first place. Call it a lesson learned on Christmas. Here’s a few more I learned today…

1. Don’t expect kids who have been up late the night before to last late into ththe present evening.

2. It being Christmas ought to change general assholery but it doesn’t.

3. Joy favors the observant mind.

4.