Lilian Nattel's Blog, page 40
May 15, 2011
May 13, 2011
The Words for Success
I've found them, thanks to the writers, of all things, Grey's Anatomy. Ah, now that I've looked up the episode, "I will Survive," and discovered that it was written by Shonda Rhimes, I'm less surprised.
I wrote the sentence on the back of the first bit of paper I could find, a yellow bank slip. Owen Hunt said it, speaking to Cristina Yang, his wife and colleague. In charge of choosing chief resident, he told her that she wasn't in the running because, though an excellent surgeon, she broke rules and was lousy at paperwork. Furthermore, he said, as steam was coming out of her ears, despite ambition which was pushing her to fight for the post at all cost, she would hate it because it would take her away from surgery, which she loved. Then he said the words written for his character by Rhimes:
"Be excellent at what you are."
That encompasses everything I wrote yesterday.
voicebox from Gray's Anatomy by Henry Gray, 1918
Filed under: Personal, Uplifting Tagged: success in life, wisdom from grey's anatomy
May 12, 2011
What is Success?
As a writer, like most writers, I want success, and I am envious of others who have more of it than I do. I struggle with it, not wanting to be envious, and I've been trying to arrive at a new vocabulary for it.
Today I was reading Emily's blog, and found my comment going on so long I decided to post even though I don't have answers yet.
Here's what got me started. Emily wrote:
I work hard, I am a pretty good writer. But I'm not a closer. I can't close the deal. Never could.
I went on Facebook today and one of the first things I saw was the Facebook group for alums for my college announcing that a woman who graduated in 1999 had just released her third novel.
It doesn't matter how many novels I've published–they aren't as many written or sold as other people's. And now I look at the amount of life stretching out before me, I also feel like I can never catch up.
Having said that, I also know that these thoughts are a result of lies about what life is supposed to be. There's a definition of success that rests on numbers: how much someone has produced, how many people have bought them; I don't mean the goods but the person whose success is under scrutiny. We are all taught our worth is how much we are sold for–child prostitutes are taught the same. The social lie is just less obvious to most of us, or if obvious, just as seductive as it is to the child who wants only love and appreciation and value, and is taught that's the way to get it.
If that's the definition of success, then it's in direct opposition to love. Love is about appreciation and acceptance. It's expansive. It includes laughter and pleasure and ease. There is no comparison in love. You don't love someone because that person is better than someone else, but because you have chosen them and they have chosen you, by chance (children) or deliberation (partner, friends). They are yours and you are theirs. It is not competitive. Success, on the other hand, is all about comparison and competition. Who has published the most? Sold the most? Earned the most? And even if you achieved it yesterday, what about today? It contracts the heart with worry, anxiety, envy; it contracts the world into a smaller and smaller circle of those who have achieved it most and latest.
No, I don't believe that's success. It's what I've been taught, and I'm plagued by it, even though I know it's a lie.
I don't have the answers yet, the words to describe success. I've tried for a few. Excellence is one–and that works well to describe doing my best in my work, writing a particular book over and over until it's as good as I can make it. But it still has a whiff of comparison. And it doesn't do at all to describe my efforts, pleasure, and improvement in other areas of life, cooking, swimming, skating, sewing, all of which I've been learning as a middle-aged adult. Surely that counts. And what about time with my kids? That's an ever evolving sport as they mature; it's challenging, rewarding, and involves as much thought and learning as researching a historical novel.
There has to be another way to think about success, one that spins out of love instead of taking away from it. One that clothes us in something better than the Emperor's clothes.
Filed under: Concerning, Personal Tagged: success
May 11, 2011
still teaching at 100 yrs old, no joke
At 100 years old, Ms. Kaufman is still shpritzing jokes, Jewish and otherwise, which is in her genes. Her grandfather was the great Yiddish storyteller Sholem Aleichem, a writer who was able to squeeze heartbreaking humor out of the most threadbare deprivation and wove the bittersweet Tevye stories that became the source for "Fiddler on the Roof."
via nytimes.com
Bel Kaufman teaches humour at Hunter College. That makes me feel like I've still got time!
Filed under: Miscellany
May 10, 2011
Today's Magic Trick: Making Women Disappear
Today's award for laughable misogyny goes to a Hasidic (those guys with the black hats and side curls) newspaper, Der Tzeitung (which means the newspaper).
Situation Room
via Washington Post
See Hilary Clinton? Yes, she is sitting with President Obama and the national security team, receiving an update on the mission re Bin Laden.
And now you don't:
via WP blog
If you were reading Der Tzeitung, you wouldn't see her or another woman in the room. They were photoshopped away.
According to a statement from the newspaper, reported by Melissa Bell in the link above:
In accord with our religious beliefs, we do not publish photos of women, which in no way relegates them to a lower status…
Uh huh. Right. I'm rushing out to buy a sheitel (the wig Hasidic women wear to cover their hair). That reminds me of the store–no joke–that had the wigs on dummy heads with sunglasses lest a man, that frail but somehow powerful creature, became inflamed.
Seriously, what I object to here is disinformation. If the newspaper doesn't want to print pictures of women, then this photo shouldn't be in it at all. To photoshop it and remove women is a lie because it removes women from office. It lies to their constituency about the world. That is what a cult does to keep its people in ignorance. And that is wrong.
Filed under: Concerning Tagged: religous misogyny
May 9, 2011
May 8, 2011
Saturday Ramble
It was sunny again on Saturday, so it was time for another walk along the train tracks, this time heading east. And this time I slathered sun screen on face, neck, shoulders and arms so that when I flashed (as I inevitably would!), I could take off my shirt and walk in a camisole.
This is a view of the clock tower in the original CP railway station at Yonge Street North of Bloor at the time when that was the northern edge of the city, now the heart of downtown.
I wondered how the heck did this end up in the mud beside the tracks?
This little mourning dove stayed in position long enough for me to take a photo, but the cheeky little bird had his head turned so that it was partly hidden by a branch.
Click on any photos to enlarge, and for more photos from the ramble, including a view of the city above the treetops of a ravine, a robin among puddles, and an old Ford truck not to be missed, click here.
Filed under: Fun, Personal Tagged: my photography
writing students who can't write
"As a journalist," I tell my despairing students, "you are finally in the storytelling business." We all are. It's the oldest form of human communication, from the caveman to the crib, endlessly riveting. Goldilocks wakes up from her nap and sees three bears at the foot of her bed. What's that all about? What happens next? We want to know and we always will.
Writers! Never forget to tell us what's up with the bears. Manage that content.
via theamericanscholar.org
William Zinsser writes about content, long form journalism, and his students who don't seem to get that sentences follow one upon the other building something sequentially. That difficulty with logical reasoning isn't just in the writing, but also in the thinking. His explanation is that students are exposed to too much short random information. But I wonder whether it isn't that logical reasoning is rarer than people think. Studies show how easily people's views changed when primed by words or images. So much of what we think is inchoate and unconscious, justified after the fact. To recognize that and think carefully takes much patience and awareness as well as what we ordinarily think of as intelligence. How common is it?
Filed under: Miscellany
Unmother's Day
For everyone who is ambivalent about their mothers, I say you're not alone. For everyone who sends a card or flowers because it would be too hard to face the storm, I say one day you'll sail beyond it. To everyone who has done better than their parents: you are heroes. To every father who is a mother and every mother who is a father: you deserve respect.
My children gave me cards today. One of them was intricately wrapped in cut and curling paper; the other came with a necklace made by the giver. A made oatmeal for breakfast, my favourite, with apple, raisins, nuts and maple syrup. There is sunshine. The rest of the day will be like any Sunday, and I am blessed because any Sunday here is a pretty good day.
Filed under: Personal Tagged: mother's day
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