Steven Barnes's Blog, page 21

The Sneakiest Way To Fail

You could be the strongest man in the world, and lose every competition.  Know how?  Its easy: simply put one more pound on the bar than you can actually lift.   In fact, that’s also a great way to fail to develop a potentially world-beating skill level: just always take on a LITTLE more than you can do.  Do this, and you’ll develop a pattern of failure that will crush your heart.

But few will ever blame you.  It is an elegant way to be able to always say “I’ve done my best” while never takin...

Cleaning out the pipes

A guy had a plumbing problem and called the local Rooter guy.   The man walked into the basement, tapped on a few pipes, twisted a joint with a wrench, and the water began to flow. The plumber gave the customer a bill for 100 bucks, and the citizen was outraged. “How can you charge so much?”  The plumber  wrote out an itemized bill:

 

“Tapping the pipe…1.00

Twisting the joint…4.00

Knowing where to twist and tap…95.00”

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I used to teach a “writer’s toolbox” class at UCLA, and at some point in...

Why “It”?

Remember those Saturday afternoon science fiction movie shows?  I sure do. Used to camp out in the living room and just forget all about the world of grades and bullies and not being chosen for the team and being mocked by girls…and imagine myself dealing with world-shattering events. Most of those movies are long forgotten. But a few stay with me.

Its fun to think of which, and wonder why.

Sometimes it’s easy, and sometimes hard.   Take 1958’s  IT! THE TERROR FROM BEYOND SPACE! A childhood f...

Making Life Delicious

In Danny Boyle’s movie “Sunshine” there is a scene where inevitable doom is approaching, and instead of pointlessly seeking to escape, or screaming in terror, a character sits peacefully contemplating a flower, smiling in contentment.

This reminded me deeply of a parable about a monk who is strolling in the woods when he is attacked by a tiger.  Fleeing, he reaches a cliff and starts to climb down. Then he hears a hiss, and sees that below his foot is a coiled cobra, ready to strike. He start...

“It’s Just Daily”

At a recent convention, we Guests of Honor were given slips of paper with questions for us to answer for the pleasure of the audience.   IMO the best of them was: “what was the best piece of advice anyone ever gave you?”    A lady to my right, the artist guest of honor got that one.  Her answer was great.

It was a neighbor lady in her 70’s.   The artist commented about how raising children was hard.  The neighbor said: “raising children isn’t hard. It’s just daily.”

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When I meet extraordin...

Short Stories and the Morning Ritual

 

“With every new piece I write, I get to a point where I lose confidence in it. Then I have a couple of days battling my desire to scrap it, and eventually drag myself back to the keyboard and slog through to the ending. Reminding myself that this happens *every single time* helps a bit.” — Sheila Finch

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With any process, it is likely you will hit a point where you empty yourself out and must grow, or “shed your skin” to complete the task.  In the Hero’s Journey, this is the “Dark Night o...

Who’s Life Is It, Anyway?

I remember the first prayer I learned as a child:

 

Now I lay me down to sleep

I pray the Lord my soul to keep

If I should die before I wake

I pray the Lord my soul to take.

 

My adult version of this is:

 

What was the single most important thing for me to do today in all four arenas?

Of these four, what was the ONE that was most important and generative.

Did I not do it?  Why not, and what resources do I need to do better tomorrow?

Did I do it?   If so, CELEBRATE!

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I made the moving trip...

#Notallhumans

http://www.wehuntedthemammoth.com/2018/06/04/incel-me-commenters-agree-women-should-fear-death-if-they-turn-down-a-guy-for-a-date/

 

 

There is a story about a game preserve in Kenya. The young bull elephants were running amok, attacking the females, tearing down buildings, and threatening humans.  One set of administrators advocated shooting them.  But a game warden had a radical notion: there were no older bulls, and without them, the young bulls had no guidance for their behavior.    The...

Fail Early…and Often

The discussion of “Incels” wound around to a lot of interesting thoughts, but one of them was my thought that they were likely under-employed.  A reader commented that many of the SORT of guys who now identify as “Incels” actually have pretty high-level tech jobs.  But that they were often the smartest person they knew until they hit Google or Microsoft…and then they were nothing special. And that that realization, that for the first time in their lives they were going to have to bear down an...

After Twenty Years…

Some thirty years ago I created “Lifewriting”, the meld of Joseph Cambell’s model of the Hero’s Journey with the balance and personal evolution implied in the Chakras model.   Was having great fun and success teaching it.

 

And then…my marriage to Toni went belly-up.  As “relationship” was one of the Big Three (now a “Big Four”: body, career, relationship, and finances) I felt it would be dishonest for me to claim to know how they work if I didn’t have one.   And my standard for a successful...