Steven Barnes's Blog, page 92

The Power of Passion

Met with Lloyd De Jongh of the "Piper" knife system last night. Really interesting. I'd heard about it for years, and was present when Stevan Plinck, one of the world's great Silat Serak players, and one of the most solidly competent martial artists I've ever met, saw his first 3rd-generation, grainy video of the staccato, lightning-fast icepick grip technique.

HERE'S a video I shot in the room: http://youtu.be/jv7Zlnvb774

Let's just say that Stevan was impressed quite favorably, and basically opined that he'd rather stick his hands into a buzzsaw than attempt to deal with such technique with empty hands. Based more on rhythm and attitude than "technique", it feels different, odd in some ways I'll address later. It was especially fascinating when he made it clear that what he and his co-creator (Lloyd considers himself #2 in the system) did was simply try to formalize the knife fighting in the South African ghettos they grew up in, prisons and so forth. Definitely a mongrel in terms of "who brought what" but with a flavor that some of my African martial arts friends would recognize. But...very, very, abrupt and lethal. He was generous with his time and knowledge. As many of the honestly dangerous people I've known tend to be, a genuine sweetheart.

Lloyd is a born story-teller, and I could have listened to him, and moved with him all night. One of the things that he was insistent upon is that point about emotional content and rhythm as primary considerations. All else comes out of this. I decided to take him at his word, and examine the implications of that in relation to other disciplines. Assuming that you have the basic components of your skill at the level of unconscious competence, then directing your focus, then raising your energy with emotion. What is the emotional content of Piper? I don't want to phrase this poorly...let's say that it is more...shall we say carnivorous than I have previously encountered? Make of that what you will.

When you have tremendous focus, and intent (and this art is apparently distilled from the techniques and attitudes of extraordinarily dangerous non-theorists. I remember a book called "Street Fighting: The American Martial Art." Its cover was the image of someone being "curbed": being forced to "bite the curb" and then have his head stomped on from behind. It is, plain and simple, a book on how to mug and ambush people. I remember the back cover "about the author" blurb: "having been arrested on numerous occasions for battery and aggrevated assault, the author's credentials are a matter of public record." Brrrrr.

Well, when you collect the techniques and attitudes of people who are actually "in the trenches" in almost any discipline, along with whatever technical mastery they may have, what you find is EMOTIONAL DIRECTION. The ability to raise and channel the appropriate emotion for the task. Emotion overcomes lethargy and controls fear. Emotion keeps you practicing during the long, boring latency period when it feels that nothing is happening. In relationships, the ability to control and communicate emotions makes the difference between passion and dying embers.

In writing, I START with an emotional urge, back off to devise structure (intellect) and begin the process of writing, which may take a year. During much of that period, I am slogging through first drafts, and it is rarely fun. But toward the end, when things start coming back together...the emotion reappears, I remember why I wanted this project, and excitement builds again. It is a beautiful experience.

Heck, I pull myself out of bed at ungodly hours of the morning not because it's fun, but because the moments when Jason and I are in harmony, and he is happy with his life and feeling confident fills me with love and hope for the entire human race. Letting myself feel that emotional flow, and remember it in pale times, keeps me going.

For Lloyd, riding that emotional flow demands sequestration or radical integration. It is an emotional content few human beings want to experience, or ever experience, outside of a life and death confrontation. It is touching the part of yourself that...well, that enjoys hurting another human being. That is dangerous as hell, one of the principle reasons that ethics and moral teachings are such a core aspect of any martial art. They tell you, over and over again, the rules of ethical engagement because they know that karate or judo or silat or anything else will never make you a fighter. You have to find the part of yourself willing to die for what you believe in, that is ALREADY a fighter (all humans have it), and then teach that part to express itself through the movement system.

The same is true of writing. No course can make you a writer. But there is a part of you that is ALREADY a storyteller. Make contact with that part, and educate it.

One part of you is ALREADY a lover and nurturer. Find it. Connect with it.

One part of you is ALREADY anything that you want to be in life. A spark. If you didn't have it, you would never have had the urge to achieve the goal. We are all things: lover, warrior, healer, storyteller, teacher. We contain multitudes.

I seriously thank Lloyd De Jongh for another reminder of the power of passion. In the crunch, passion will rip technique to pieces, if technique is not very, very careful indeed.
WWW.Diamondhour.com

Raising Emergy

Raising Energy

All other things being equal, no single goal will do more for improving the overall quality of your life than simply "I will double my energy level."

Now, it is difficult to quantify a statement like this, but it operates as a vector. Let's take a look at two different things:
1) Why to increase energy
2) How to increase energy.


All right. "Why" first. Let's define it. According to Wikipedia, "In physics, energy (Ancient Greek: ἐνέργεια energeia "activity, operation"[1]) is an indirectly observed quantity that is often understood as the ability of a physical system to do work on other physical systems.[2][3] Since work is defined as a force acting through a distance (a length of space), energy is always equivalent to the ability to exert pulls or pushes against the basic forces of nature, along a path of a certain length."

Applying this idea to the motivating force that drives our mental and physical lives, it is clear that when we have "a lot" of energy all of our actions are facilitated, and when we have "little" energy everything in life becomes more difficult. Now, having energy is a separate matter from exerting it efficiently or effectively...but those are subsequent to actually having plenty of that quality children seem to have in abundance, and that we seem to have less and less of, on average, after the age of about 35.

A) Why increase energy?

1) it is almost impossible to change habit patterns when your energy is low.
2) "Fatigue makes cowards of us all"--low energy leads to states of fear and depression.
3) Energy makes it possible to generate ideas, leading to enhanced problem solving capacity
4) Energy in general makes life more enjoyable
5) ...enables you to accomplish more in a day, or in an hour
6) ...can be refined to produce clearer and more elevated perspectives on life, which are often considered "spiritual" values.
7) Projects to those around you as confidence and charisma, increasing your attractiveness. Ths is critical both in interpersonal relationships and building mastermind groups.
8) Increases sex drive, which both enhances health, improves our relationships, and is...well, just a lot of fun.
9) The ability to withstand failures, and begin again and again if necessary.
10) Our energy lifts up those around us. If you want to help your loved ones change and thrive, be a beacon of love, light, and energy. They will tend to resonate to your energy, just as depression can be contagious, so can optimism and passion.

Ten Ways to Improve energy.

There are so many, but I'll cluster them according to four different categories: Physical, Mental, Intellectual, and Spiritual. Within those, the most important core areas are Exercise, Diet, Rest, and Motivation. Each could be a lifetime discipline (and I discuss some of the factors in the 101 PROGRAM)

1) Improve the physical machine. This includes revving up the cellular energy mechanisms, achieving an ideal body composition (anything you carry that doesn't enhance performance in some way detracts from it), decreasing tension, improving posture, etc. Exercise needs to have joint recovery, stretching, strenghening, and balancing the body. And in general...break a sweat every day. Every day you eat, you should move your butt.

2) Dietary patterns. Quantity of food, quality of food, timing of meals. So much. As a general rule, you should eat today to recover from yesterday and prepare for tomorrow. If you simply pay more attention to how you feel the day after your meal, and experiment, you'll solve much of this for yourself. There is no single diet that works for everyone, all the time, in every situation. But if you put less attention on how it tastes, how you respond emotionally, how you feel an hour later...and more attention onto that 24 hour delay, over the course of months and years of attention and journaling you'll work it out.

3) Rest. Quality and quantity of sleep. I am always saddened when talking to people who lack energy, feel depressed, ache, fight with obesity and so forth...who talk about how they get 5-6 hours of sleep a night. Or less. This is one of the most basic and simple "fixes". When in doubt, get 7-8 hours of sleep a night.

4) Focus. The key to motivation is to have multiple reasons to accomplish something. Most people who have a difficult time maintaining a diet, stopping smoking, finishing a book or whatever don't have many reason to do it. One or two reasons, usually. What these people need is to get CRYSTAL clear on what they want, and have dozens of reasons for why they want to do it.

 Think about it: "merely" concentrating on generating or sophisticating energy can affect every aspect of your life, all aspects of performance, enhance all relationships and change depression to optimism.

1) In whatever way you define the terms, how would you evaluate your physical energy? Emotion? Intellectual? Spiritual? Sexual?

2) How would you evaluate your physical training program? The quality and quantity of your sleep? The quality of your diet? The clarity and specificity of your goals and plans?

Just 1/2 hour going over these questions in your journal can reveal "leaks" in your performance, leaks that could be simple to prevent, but hard to fix if ignored for too long.

Walking the tightrope

"Learn to treat pleasure and pain as things equivalent
Then profit and loss, victory and defeat;
Then gird thyself for battle
Thus wilt thou bring no evil on thyself."
--The Bhagavad-Gita

Okay, here's a joke:

A young psychiatrist leaves his office at the end of the day, disheveled and beaten. He gets in his building's elevator, and in there is another psychiatrist, the most successful doctor in the building, an older gentleman, still crisp and unwrinkled by the day. The kid can't help himself.
"Can I ask you a question?"
"Sure," the older man replies.
The kid gulps. "How do you do it?"
"Do what?"
"Listen to all the stories every day, and not be crushed by it? Stories of pain, and shredded hopes, and broken dreams. Of abuse, and shattered marriages and lost love, and suicidal thoughts and soul-withering grief? How can you do it?"

The old man smiled, and answered: "who listens?"
###

Years ago, I encountered the concept of the "Householder Yogi"--one who follows a spiritual path while simultaneously maintaining a career and/or supporting a family. It resonated. But considering that caring for family deals with the most basic chakra levels, while spirit is the 7th--and therefore outside the envelope of the physical body--it can be difficult to reconcile them.

One of the reasons I love the equation "Goals X Faith X Action X Gratitude=Results" is that it embraces both "attracting" success and "stalking" it. Look at these two approaches as "female" and "male" aspects, and it becomes obvious that you have to combine the two to have a maximum chance of achieving goals or living a happy life.

Many of the requirements of raising a family have nothing to do with what you "want" (changing diapers, for instance) and everything to do with what is necessary. And yet, to perform at the highest levels of the "necessary" you have to engage as if you derive pleasure from it. In fact, ideally, you DO derive pleasure from it. With the aforementioned diapers...anyone who has ever had a constipated child has learned to rejoice in a full diaper. It means a healthy baby, something so shockingly important the emotions can overwhelm if you are not prepared.

To do the best in worldly things, one has to do them for the sheer love of doing them, without attachments to the results. But simultaneously keeping the results in mind. Tricky balancing act.

You have to simultaneously care and not care at all. Engage and remain disengage. Do your best and not give a damn about the results.

Isn't this exactly what I tell Jason before he takes the soccer field? I care about his practice. I care about him giving 100%. I care about his sportsmanship, and support of his team, and that he learn something every time he plays. I don't much care whether they win or lose out there. But in contradiction to that, I honestly believe that if he does those things...he'll win his butt off.

Does that seem hypocritical? To tell him not to care about winning, while simultaneously asking him to care deeply about the things which his daddy believes will lead to victory? Maybe. I know that I wonder about that some time. But I also know that that attitude applies deeply to my attitudes about writing (do my very best, work hard, be unattached to sales or reviews), relationships (seek to give all I can, want the very best for any friend or lover I've ever had...including wish them to leave me if that is better for them), or fitness (do my best every day, but understand that I cannot control all the factors that influence my results).

Do your best, every day. Constant action leading to your goals, with faith, and gratitude for results yet to be attained. And remain unattached to the results.

Or as Rudyard Kipling said in "If":

"If you can bear to hear the truth you've spoken
Twisted by knaves to make a trap for fools
Or watch the things you gave your life to broken
And stoop and build 'em up with worn out tools..."

If you can do the myriad things Kipling suggests, you can be in the world, but not of it. 
Or as I say to Jason:
You'll be a man, my son.


Steve
www.diamondhour.com

Upgrade your brain

Open your head, upgrade your brain!


Ever had this happen to you: your computer begins to slow down to the point that it just isn't fun to use any more? Slows down like a slug on opium? Well, that was happening to me. I tried an "optimizing" program, and it worked...for about 48 hours, then everything slowed back down. I emptied caches and deleted unneccesary programs tried everything.

Then I talked to an expert, who explained the dance between processor, hard drive, and memory.   He explained that I simply had too little memory, and that my computer was having to struggle and re-purpose it, like a host at a dinner party trying to serve 100 guests with only  20 plates. I mean, 1 gigabyte SOUNDS good. Sounds great in fact (it's THREE HUNDRED AND FIFTY THOUSAND times more memory than the computers that took us to the moon!) but with the current high-graphics programs, its just not enough. Not even close.

So...I ordered 4 gig of memory off the internet (about forty bucks). It came three days later. Searched the internet for instructions on how to put it in. The first set of instructions weren't good, in fact they described the chips backwards. The second set of instructions, on Youtube, were perfect. I opened my machine, popped in the chips, and booted up. WOW! Lightning fast, and better than the day I brought this puppy home from the store. I'm in love again. All cursing apologized for.

Now...what can we make of this? First of all, it is important to understand the actual way you create performance in your life. With my computer, it was a dance between processor, memory, and hard drive. In your life, it is a dance between physical energy, emotional intensity, and mental clarity.

You have to study the lives of people who have achieved what you want, and gain perspective on where YOU need to improve to align yourself with this positive pattern. Sometimes you need an "expert" for this, and sometimes not.

But I can promise you that if you are performing below expectations or desired levels, if you ask yourself:

1) Is my physical energy at its peak efficiency? Am I taking constant, directed action daily?
2) Are my emotions aligned with my intentions? Do I have permission to succeed? Do I have fears, anxieties or angers connected with my actions or goals?
3) Is my mind as clear and focused as possible? Do I have clearly designed goals, and plans for their attainment? Are my goals aligned with BOTH my childhood dreams and ultimate values?

If the answer to ANY of those questions is "no" it defines the work you have ahead. Sometimes it takes only a tiny change to get back your old "zip". I love my "new" computer.

You'll love your "new" you.


Steve

Driving With Your Brakes On

I was looking into the 101 Program this morning, and as often happens, free associated with its content. the "Five Tibetans" (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=juZxrv...) , one of the very first concepts introduced, is a hyper-simple, quick and efficient whole-body fitness regimen. More importantly, because it is to be performed daily, it is a great diagnostic for your body-mind connection, and degree of unconsciousness.

 But it isn't fool proof. One of my students, a lady who was tremendously angry with her husband, confessed to wanting to punish him by making her body unattractive. But at the same time, she was concerned about back pain and loss of energy that resulted from a serious weight gain. I suggested the Tibetans, and a few weeks later she reported that she had hurt herself. How? The first Tibetans says that you hold your arms level with the ground and spin in a circle.
 She interpreted this as "keep your feet in the same place and corkscrew your body until you twist your back."
 Ouch. I don't believe she didn't understand. You could give those instructions to a thousand people--and I have--and not one of them would do something as unfortunate as that. She's smarter than that. She sabotaged herself.
 Goals demand that you have your values, beliefs, and emotional anchors all aligned. This lady had equal and opposite "pulls" on her unconscious: "keep extra fat" and "lose weight" operating at the same time.
 I think we've all seen this before. In writing: people who deliberately follow pathways their mentors have told them will cause failure (like writing huge novels without ever having published a short story. You can burn up YEARS with this one.)

 In relationships: following old, negative patterns of behavior, or refusing to pay attention to indications that a prospective partner is pure poison. (Prospective partner is pure poison. Say that five times fast!)
 In finances: skipping your Quicken sessions, or refusing to balance your checkbook. Not answering creditors' calls. Continuing to spend money on consumer items that depreciate instantly.
 In other words, you know what you should do, you are afraid to do it, so you take actions that look kinda sorta like forward progress, but are actually designed to create the illusion "I'm trying! I'm writing/exercising/working/dating but the world just isn't cooperating!"
 Until you are certain that your unconscious supports your external goals, you are operating with your brakes on, and the results can be dreadful...
 Lying to yourself and others.
 Breaking promises to yourself and others.
 Distorting incoming or ourgoing information.
 "Forgetting" important details of your process.
 Vague, unfocussed fears and negative emotions.
 Procrastination.

 Any and all of these can be symptoms of "fighting" internally, competing beliefs and emotions. And they can sabotage your life.

 1) Where do you recognize the above behaviors in your own life?
 2) Where have you seen them in other people?
 3) Where have you seen them create dysfunction within organizations or political bodies (conflicting goals leading to gridlock)

 Much to think of here...


 Steve 

The inner child, and smoking

One of my FaceBook friends recently celebrated his fifth anniversary as a non-smoker.    I asked what his method was, and he said the following:

FB: “I’m glad you asked. It's kinda personal but I'm not shy. I knew from personal experience about a psycho-personality model commonly referred to as the "inner child," which works for me though others may identify with other terms like "higher" and "lower" selves.

STEVE:  Different imagery produces different associations, and relates to different aspects of our internal territory.   Male/female, animal/spiritual, child/elder are just some of the possible splits.  The smart thing is to work with different symbols and see which ones, in which syntax, have power.

FB  Anyway, that's a deep discussion/digression. Bottom line is that after trying many times to quit, I reached a point where I could almost see that "inner child" part of me that needed to rebel, to be pacified, to do what he wanted.

STEVE: Note the similarity between this and people who have difficulty finishing, say, a short story.  Or can’t decide which of several different projects to pursue.   Or have a difficult time disciplining themselves to endure an unpleasant “now” in exchange for a blissful tomorrow.  This could easily be seen as a “war” between the child who wants to watch cartoons, and the adult who pushes the completion of homework.

FB:    And so I had an inner dialog. Literally. I (the adult "I" who is more or less in charge) made him a deal. I said, "We both know this smoking is killing us, right? It's time to put it behind us. It's Sept. 5th. Let's agree to smoke like a chimney if you want until the end of the month. No restrictions, no judgment. And come Oct. 1st we put it down and don't look back. Deal?"

STEVE:   I’ve noticed that if I say: “Jason, it’s time for bed” he might flip out.  But if I say: “in two minutes it will be bedtime” he has time to make whatever internal shifts he needs, and can adjust far more easily.   “Stop now” produces no results.  “I will count to three…” is about ten times as effective.  Why?  Not sure.  But it works, and that’s all that really matters.

FB:  And I actually felt "him" acquiesce. It felt like I was at peace with this decision, instead of fearful like before. I didn't think much about it during September 2007, except to occasionally remind my inner kid when I lit up that we had a deal. And then the 1st came. And that was that. Never looked back. Very little withdrawal issues. Very little urge for a few weeks I guess and then none.That's it in a nutshell.”
###

Again, this is a lovely version of the “Parts Party” theory of internal communication.  Version of this can be found in every meditative discipline I’ve experienced, many psychotherapeutic models, and in the spontaneously devised methods of successful people—when they can describe their internal process.  I strongly suspect that even people who CANNOT describe those internal processes are doing something similar.

Much, much to study and extract here!

Steve

The Art of Being You

What is "Art?" That is an old question, which has been endlessly debated by people much smarter than me. Nonetheless, let’s try this: "Art is Self-Expression."
Wait, you ask. Is that it? Is that all there is? Is it art if my 2-year old dips his hand into the potty and smears a handful of goo on the wall and says: "Looky what I did!"
Well...yes and no. Consider "Art" to be like the water within a vase. What allows us to appreciate that art, or judge it in comparison with other offerings, is generally the shape and style and quality of the vase.
So...to appreciate art we need craft. If I look at the people I've known who were successful artists (proud of their work, popular with their audience, acknowledged by their peers) there are a number of things in common about them. Here are three:

1) They put in that "10,000 hours." Every time I've ever gotten close to someone who is considered a "master" (one in whose presence dedicated students feel uplifted. One who has mastered basics sufficiently that they can be re-combined, under pressure, to create spontaneously and unconsciously) what has been obvious is a lifetime of focused work. Millions of repetitions of the basics, whether you are talking martial arts, writing, or spiritual disciplines. I have been blessed to know masters in each of these three arenas, and they mirror each other beautifully.

2) They did not scatter their efforts. Although they may have astoundingly high skills in a number of arenas, they did NOT try to "chase two cats at the same time." There was something, SOMETHING that drew them most strongly, and they pursued it to the limit of their capacity, monomaniacally. This, BTW, comes of having clear values. Some have this quality naturally. Others must work at it. But if you would master your life, it is critical that you have a single thing that is more important than everything else. If you had a fever, and someone woke you up out of a deep sleep and asked you what was the most important thing, you could tell them, instantly. For me, it is "balance." What is yours?

3) They believed their own inner voice. They trusted their instincts. Now, this is NOT to say that they were not plagued by doubts. When you bet EVERYTHING on the belief that you have something to say, that you can be great...when you cut off paths of retreat, and sacrifice parties, and fun, and casual entertainments, and security for the privilege of spending their lives actualizing childhood dreams.


Take a look at Musashi's first two principles: DO NOT THINK DISHONESTLY, and THE WAY IS IN TRAINING. The first encourages you to ask the most important questions in the world: "What is true?" and "Who am I?" This is an inquiry into the Self. The true self, not the presenting aspects of name, occupation, history, gender, race, nationality, etc.

The second ("The Way is in Training") is a simple reminder that whatever you want to be good at, you have to do every day.
For the things I care about, that means:
Work breath, movement, and structure in yoga and martial arts EVERY DAY.
Read and write EVERY DAY
Meditate and connect with those I love EVERY DAY
Re-assess my goals and plans EVERY DAY.

With all of them, continually asking: "Who am I?" and "What is true?" Deeper and deeper. There will be no end to it, until I get to the answers that cannot be reduced further. And if you are measuring results in the external world, you'll notice that your work is sometimes better, sometimes worse, but that overall it improves, sometimes massively. But you will be practicing the "art" of being you. And that is the highest, deepest art in the world.

Steve
www.diamondhour.com

The Cost Of Your Dreams

There are three basic aspects of the "Lifewriting" process, the
CHILD’S STORY: A short “fairy tale”, about 100 words, about how you grew up to be the adult you are today. “Once upon a time there was a little girl/boy who…”

ADULT STORY: A written statement of your commitment to step #1. No more than 50 words. Your vow to take control of your life.

FUTURE HISTORY: Write the story of your life, starting today, and continuing until the day you die. Have goals in ALL THREE MAJOR AREAS. Make it as sensory rich as you can. BUILD INTO YOUR LIFE STORY WHAT YOU ARE WILLING TO GIVE IN EXCHANGE FOR WHAT YOU ARE RECEIVING.

This last part is essential. Most people will set goals, but have no idea or commitment as to the price, the cost, of achieving them.

1) Determine the cost. To do this, find people who have already accomplished your goal, or a goal as close as possible. Preferably, starting from where you started in life.
What actions, beliefs, allies, and resources did they need?

2) Decide if you are willing to pay that cost. Don't lie to yourself. Losing weight and keeping it off demands BOTH exercise and dietary discipline. Improving finances demands BOTH increasing income AND budgeting more carefully. Improving relationships demands BOTH improved self-love, self-respect and empathy AND better communication skills, courage, and honesty.

What is your emotional damage? Everyone has it. Willing to face your demons? To ask for help and build teams of allies? Deal with the inevitable defeats? Is so, walk on. If not, CHANGE YOUR GOALS. There is nothing wrong with changing goals, deciding the cost for time, effort, money, or discomfort is just too high.

If you want to get int o the top 1% of any discipline, you'd better be prepared to spend 10,000 hours at it. If it isn't worth that, choose another goal.

3) Put your failure recovery process into place FIRST. Whatever emotional, financial, or physical safety net you are going to need (and you DO know what it is, right? You HAVE actually spoken to, or studied the words and lives of people who have accomplished your goal, right? Right?) before you begin.

4) Analyze where you are in life currently. Subtract this from the overall mass of work you will have to do to accomplish your dream. What remains is what you must acquire to build the life you want.

5) Plan to do 1% of this work every week. Divide it up. Plot and plan. Build mastermind groups. This is Musashi's "The Way Is In Training." Work out every day, seeking slightly deeper knowledge of the body-mind IN EVERY SESSION. Write a short story a week, or every other week. Take your meditation a fraction deeper every day. Begin to take healthy chances in your love life.

6) Fail successfully. When you fall on your face, get rejected, or relapse--and you will!--journal what you have learned. Enjoy the fact that you've had the courage to try (most won't), get up and try again.

7) Repeat process until it reaches unconscious competence. Until this rhythm is totally instinctive. And...if you have chosen your goals in balance (body, mind, emotions, and finances), you will find yourself growing in unexpected ways, and beginning to understand the meaning of life in a direct, divine, non-linguistic fashion. It is an amazing experience, one with no downside.

If you think the disappointment of failure is hard, just try the regret of never trying at all.

Steve
www.diamondhour.com

Flexible Mind, Flexible Body

Boxing fans, remember the “Rumble in the Jungle”? Mohammed Ali was fighting George Foreman. Foreman was the biggest, strongest, most powerful heavyweight anyone had ever seen. Bombed Joe Frazier out pretty frighteningly fast. People thought Ali might die. Ali beat him, because he perceived that Foreman, given a clear target, would throw bombs all night long, unable to believe that he couldn’t kill anything he could hit.

Ali’s own trainers were afraid, because this brilliant boxer devised a strategy IN THE RING, UNDER FIRE, that no one had ever used before. He understood the physics of the ropes (that would be a practical, not necessarily intellectual understanding) and knew that if he leaned back against them as Foreman pounded, his body would be able to dissipate much of the shock into the ropes, rather than the shock merely traveling through his body, damaging internal organs (although he was peeing blood the next day!)

Foreman, unable to adjust his style, kept pounding until he was nearly exhausted, and Ali knocked him out.

There is something called “The Law of Requisite Variety” that suggests that within any system, the most flexible part will control the system. In other words, the part that can adapt.

An operative definition of insanity is to do the same thing over and over again and expect different results.

In life, this might be termed “keep trying something different until you get the result you want.”

Think about what what a guerrilla army can do to a traditional army. A traditional army is designed to destroy or occupy the infrastructure of a geopolitical entity. This works great when fighting another traditional army. But against an enemy that can fade away into the hills or the civilian population, the actions of a traditional army actually recruit more enemies, while exhausting its resources and will.

Think about a writing career. When you first start writing, you might want to create a specific type of work. The chances are that that particular genre or sub-genre was a means, not an end. The end was self-expression and financial gain. If you aren’t careful, very careful to understand what you were actually trying to achieve, you’ll beat your head against a wall until you are bloody, rather than trying novels…and short work…and fantasy…and military fiction…and screenplays…and whatever else you can do, until you get the result you want.

In a family, if you aren’t flexible, your kids will beat the hell out of you, because THEY are infinitely flexible. Try to remain stolid, and they will simply find your “edges” and “cracks” and work around you. They are like water flowing to the sea. Oppose them without a backup plan, and you are beaten before you start. In intimate relationships, this is just as important. Remember that your GOAL is a harmonious, happy, productive, passionate relationship—not simply winning some particular argument or “getting your way” at some particular time.

In the world of exercise, this is vital. Jack LaLanne says that you have to change your workout routine every month. Your body simply gets used to ANYTHING you throw at it, and the results will start to diminish. Now, that doesn’t mean you can’t have consistency: I love Bikram yoga, and it is exactly the same routine every time. However, I can vastly vary its effect on my body by
1) concentrating on different visualizations.
2) concentrating on different body parts.
3) pre-exhausting or pre-stretching different muscle groups before I go to class, etc.

In other words, it can LOOK the same from the outside, but be different. Beware of anyone who suggests there is only one way to do something, and that anyone who suggests another way is a fool or a knave (lots of that going on politically in America right now.) They are merely revealing their own inflexibility. Don’t blame them—feel sorry for them. Fear tends to “flatten out” behaviors, forces people to see the world in black-and-white, and to be hierarchical as hell. This is a very human response, and people fall into it in business, love, and health.

Commit to flexibility. By the way—in Yoga they suggest that a flexible spine leads to flexible attitudes. I’m not sure, but I HAVE noticed that a large percentage of the most psychologically or politically inflexible people I’ve known have bad backs. Go figure.

www.diamondhour.com

Three approaches to writing--and life

Recap: The three basic approaches:
1) Start at the beginning and work to the end.  This is the typical approach
2) Start with “the end in mind.”   Write the last chapter or scene, and then align everything else to lead up to it and reinforce the meaning of these last images.  This is what Margaret Mitchell reportedly did with “Gone With The Wind.”
3) Simply make notes here and there, adding scenes, dialogue, description and what not as the ideas come to you.   Writing programs like “Scrivener” make this approach a joy.


Note that this relates to three basic ways of approaching life.
1) Most people just get up every day, work it, do what is directly on their plate, without strategic thought about their future actions.
2)  Goal-setting is the single easiest way to increase efficiency.  Just knowing where you’re going increases momentum and decreases wasted movement.   If you add alignment of values and beliefs, wow!
3)   This approach can be the most advanced.  Assuming you have internalized your basic structure, and have experienced the full flow-through of a project from beginning to end often enough to have it at the level of “unconscious competence” it is possible to live life just moving from one interest to another, with “work” replaced by fascination, and completed projects almost creating themselves.

Do you use one of these, or a combination?   Have I omitted one? What do YOU do?

Steve